Sins of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  “No,” Celine said.

  “Didn’t think so.” Styke pictured the map of the city he kept in his head. Landfall had started as a fort atop the cracked Landfall Plateau—an oblong chunk of rock that rose almost two hundred feet above the floodplains of Fatrasta’s eastern coast. During the Kez reign, the town had overfilled the plateau and spread across the plains from Novi’s Arm in the south to the labor camps in the marshes to the north. The “front half,” as he liked to call it, included the bay, docks, industrial center, and the bourgeoisie tenements and government buildings up on the plateau. The “back half” consisted of several miles of slums, stretching toward the west, and including the old Dynize quarry known as Greenfire Depths.

  Nobody cared about Greenfire Depths back during the war, and nobody cared about it now. Some things never changed.

  Styke caught sight of a small building in the corner of the marketplace. Smoke belched from several stacks on the roof and a sign read FLES AND FLES FINE BLADES.

  “You remember what you used to do in the camp?” Styke asked Celine.

  “Keep an eye out?”

  “Yeah. You’re going to have to do that from now on, except this time it’s going to be harder. We’re not in the camp anymore, and not everyone is an enemy.”

  “Shouldn’t that make it easier?”

  “You’d think, but out here you don’t know who your friends or enemies are. Every person you see has the potential to be either one, and you’ll have to judge for yourself which they are.”

  “Dad always said never to trust anyone.”

  “Gotta trust some people some of the time. Otherwise what’s the use of living?”

  “So how will I know if someone is my friend?” Celine asked.

  Styke lifted her off his shoulder as they drew closer to the sword vendor, setting her on the ground beside him. “For now, I’ll let you know. But this is a big world. I won’t be able to tell you all the time. You’ll have to trust your instincts.”

  “I can do it,” Celine said, lifting her chin proudly.

  Styke patted her on the back of the head. “I know. Come on, we’re going in here. I’ve got to see someone.”

  “Are they a friend or an enemy?” Celine asked.

  Styke paused, considering this for a moment. “A friend. I hope.”

  The blade vendor had a long, narrow stall facing the market street, behind which several red-faced youths stood wearing smith’s aprons, hawking swords and knives of all kinds to the passing crowd. Styke sidled up to the table and looked over it, eyeing the quality of the knives, looking for something that could fit his size. Nothing stood out to him. “Since when does Fles and Fles take on apprentices?” he asked.

  Two of the boys behind the table glanced at each other. “Seven, maybe eight years now,” the older one said.

  And some things, Styke told himself silently, change a lot. “I’m looking for Ibana ja Fles.”

  “Ibana isn’t here,” the older boy said. “She went to Redstone a few weeks ago for an ore shipment.”

  Styke let out something between an annoyed groan and a sigh of relief. He wasn’t entirely sure himself which it was. “How about the Old Man? He still kicking around here?”

  “Mr. Fles is in the back.”

  “Right.” Styke walked around the table and ducked into the building behind it, ignoring the protests of the apprentices. Celine followed on his heels.

  The inside of the foundry was well lit by large windows and strategically placed gaps in the roof. Four bellows worked at once, feeding four fires, each of them attended by a trio of apprentices. The clang of hammers on steel was deafening as he passed through the center of the foundry and approached a curtain near the back. He pulled it aside to reveal a small workbench.

  An old man, less than five feet tall with sagging cheeks and arms folded across his chest, sat rocking back in his chair, feet on the workbench, long mustache trembling as he snored loudly enough to compete with the hammers. Styke watched him for a moment, feeling an involuntary smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

  There was a time he thought he’d never see Old Man Fles again.

  Styke held his finger up to his lips, motioning to Celine to come inside the curtained-off workshop and close the curtain, then held his hands right next to the Old Man’s left ear. He clapped them together as hard as he could, hard enough to make his crippled hand throb painfully.

  Old Man Fles leapt halfway out of his chair, arms windmilling, and would have gone over backward had Styke not caught him.

  “By Kresimir,” Fles swore, “who the … what the … why are you back here? Can’t you see important work is being done? I will summon my … I will summon … my …” Fles regained his composure slowly, his eyes focusing on Styke. He searched his apron pockets for a pair of spectacles and perched them on the bridge of his nose. “Benjamin?” he asked incredulously. “Benjamin Styke?”

  “That’s right,” Styke said.

  Fles blinked at him for several moments. His mouth opened, then closed, and slowly the surprised expression slid off his face, replaced by annoyance—like he was staring at a barely tolerated dog he thought had run off for good. “I thought you were dead.”

  “They tried,” Styke said. “Twice.”

  “By Kresimir,” Fles breathed. “Where have you been?”

  “Work camps.”

  “Last we heard you’d been put up against the wall. You never wrote. Ibana is going to kill you.” The three sentences came out in a quick tumble of words.

  “I was. And they wouldn’t let me.”

  “Won’t matter to her, you know.”

  Styke sighed. “I know.”

  Fles’s eyes went to Celine. “Who’s this?”

  “My associate, Celine. Celine, this is Old Man Fles. He’s the best swordmaker in Fatrasta.”

  “Don’t short me, boy,” Fles said. “I’m the best in the world.”

  Celine seemed more than a little skeptical. “You’re a blacksmith?” she asked.

  “A blacksmith?” Fles huffed. “Do I look like I make horseshoes and trinkets? I deal death here, little lady. The finest death in all the lands. Here, take a look at this.” Fles reached across his workbench, plucking a sword off the wall. It was a smallsword, simple and elegant, with a silver guard and gold rivets on the pommel. He held it beneath Celine’s nose. “This is my latest. Took me eight months.”

  “It doesn’t look very fancy,” Celine said.

  “Fancy has nothing to do with a good sword,” Fles countered. “Doesn’t matter if you’re a child or seven feet tall—the balance on this sword is perfect. It weighs next to nothing, without sacrificing momentum. There’s magic in this blade.”

  “It’s also worth a prince’s ransom,” Styke said. “Three kings of the Nine all carry Fles blades.”

  “Two,” Fles countered. “Field Marshal Tamas put Manhouch’s head in a basket, in case you hadn’t heard.”

  “Ten years ago,” Styke said. “I did get the occasional newspaper.”

  “Just two kings now,” Fles repeated with a sigh, putting the sword back on its peg.

  Styke stared at the weapon for a few moments, barely hearing the clang of the hammers on anvils out in the foundry. He’d spent many years in this little workshop and his brain seemed to instinctively tune the hammers out. There were a lot of memories here, both good and bad. He steeled himself, forcing them all to the back of his head.

  “So, you’re out of the work camps and still alive? What are you doing here, then? Ibana’s gone to Redstone, if you’re looking for her.”

  “I need a blade,” Styke said. “Something cheaper than that.”

  “As if I’d give you one of mine,” Fles scoffed. “It’d be like a toothpick to you.” He sucked on his front teeth for a moment, tapping the side of his head. “Ah, I seem to remember something …” He bent beneath the workbench, rummaging through several boxes before removing a long bundle. He withdrew the wrappings, tossing them on the workben
ch, and proudly held a knife out to Styke. “No idea why she kept it,” he said. “It’s far from her best work.”

  It was called a “boz” knife, after the inventor, but most people would find the “knife” part an understatement. It had a fixed blade and was thirty-two inches from the slightly hooked, double-bladed tip to the end of the worn, ironwood handle. It had a steel crosspiece, with a dried bit of something—probably a Kez officer’s blood—still caught in the joint. Carved into the bottom of the handle was a craftsman’s mark with the name “Fles.” Styke removed the blade from its old leather sheath, examined it for rust or misuse—it was freshly sharpened and oiled—and kissed the craftsman’s mark before fastening the sheath to his belt.

  He swallowed a lump in his throat. It wasn’t just an enormous knife, big even for the boz style. It was his knife.

  Styke let Fles’s complaint go by without comment and turned his attentions to the wrappings the knife had been stored in. On closer examination, it was a faded yellow cavalryman’s jacket, with a colonel’s star still pinned to one lapel. One of the pockets was heavy, and he turned out a silver necklace with a big, heavy ring hanging from the end—on the face of the ring was a skull the size of his thumb, run through with a lance, and a flag fluttering around it. The sigil of the Mad Lancers. Styke licked his lips, feeling a moment of reverence as he unhooked the chain and slid the ring over his right ring finger. Without a word, he folded his jacket and put it under his arm.

  “Take it,” Fles said. “Gets some of the junk out of my workshop. Ibana is going to throw a shit fit when she finds it missing.” He grinned wickedly, then let the smile slide off his face.

  “Thanks,” Styke said.

  “She’s going to kill you,” Fles reiterated.

  Styke ignored the warning. “You still have your ear to the ground?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Information.”

  “Bah,” Fles said. “I haven’t traded information since the war.” He eyed Styke for a few seconds, his gaze lingering on the scars. “But I’m not deaf. What are you looking for?”

  Styke considered his course of action, looking at the sword hanging on the wall behind Fles. The next words out of his mouth could have serious consequences. Bringing Old Man Fles into his vendetta could get him killed, and Ibana really would kill him if he did that. But Styke needed help.

  “The Blackhats,” he said, “they still as powerful as they were during the war?”

  Fles snorted. “And then some, over and over again. They’re one of the reasons I got out of the information business. If you work in Landfall, you work for the Blackhats, and I have no interest in them. During the war they were just a bunch of thugs and spies, but now …” Fles trailed off. “You don’t want to get involved with the Blackhats.”

  “They give you any trouble?” Styke asked.

  “I pay them off every few months with a box of castoffs. Gives their midlevel bureaucrats something to brag about, having a Fles blade, without watering down my image.”

  Styke couldn’t help but grin. Fles was getting old, but he was still as sharp as any of his swords. The grin slipped off his face as he came to his next question. “And”—he took a breath—“Fidelis Jes?”

  Fles looked like he’d bitten into a lemon. “Still runs the Blackhats. Still as cruel as ever. He’s in the gossip columns every couple of months for killing someone important, and he seems to revel in it.”

  “Lindet lets him get away with open murder?” Styke was surprised by that.

  “Not quite,” Fles said. “He leaves space in his schedule for at least one duel every morning. Anyone can challenge him, as long as they don’t use guns or sorcery. He’s hated enough that his schedule is full weeks in advance, but he never loses.”

  Styke’s grip tightened on the butt of his knife. “You mean I could just walk in there and challenge him to a fight to the death?” That sounded incredibly too easy.

  “You’d be a fool.” Fles snorted. “Never challenge someone in their own territory. Besides, you look like you got run over by an army’s baggage train, while Jes is more dangerous than ever.” Fles waved a finger under Styke’s nose. “Don’t you give in to that temptation or I’ll tell Ibana, and she will desecrate your corpse.”

  “I’m not a fool.” Styke said, though the prospect did tempt him. “I’d much rather enjoy the startled look on his face when he wakes up in the dead of night to my hands around his throat.”

  “Much better thinking,” Fles agreed. “But getting that chance will be next to impossible. The Blackhats deal with any sort of threat with brutal efficiency. You should stay away from the Blackhats and stay away from Fidelis Jes.”

  Styke considered his mission from Tampo. “I will for now,” he said. “But I can’t ignore them for good.”

  “I hope you’ve got a damned good reason.”

  “Jes tried to sabotage my parole hearing. I don’t know why, but if he knew I was in the labor camps then he might be the one who put me there in the first place. And if he’s not, he’ll know who did. I owe him for that. And,” Styke said, gesturing with his mangled hand to the deep bullet scar on his face, “for this.”

  “What do you need?” Fles asked quietly.

  “Everything about him. His habits, his friends. I want to know where he shits and where he eats. I want to know how tight Lindet has him on a leash.”

  Fles’s face fell a little with every word Styke uttered. He stared at Celine for a few moments, then up at Styke. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks,” Styke said.

  “Is he going to come looking for you?” Fles said.

  “I don’t know,” Styke replied. It wasn’t something that had occurred to him, but the possibility made him swear inwardly. If Fidelis Jes wanted him kept in the camps, he’d be furious if he found out Styke was released. “Maybe.”

  “I’ll keep an ear to the ground,” Fles said, “but I’ll have to be damned careful about it.”

  Styke looked around, the workshop feeling suddenly foreign to his eyes. It had been too long. “I appreciate the help. When Ibana comes back …”

  “I’ll tell her to find you.”

  “Thanks again.” Styke took Celine by the hand and slipped out from behind the curtain and toward the front of the foundry. He was deep in thought, barely noticing the apprentices who stared at him as he went by.

  “Ben!” Fles called out behind him.

  Styke half-turned to the old swordmaker. “Yeah?”

  Fles hobbled out into the middle of the market and peered up at him, face thoughtful, and said in a low tone, “Good to see you again. Is Mad Ben Styke back to give ’em the pit?”

  Styke held his jacket out at arm’s length, examining it for a moment before removing the pins from the lapels. He stuffed them in his pants pocket and slipped his arms into the jacket. It still fit him, even if it was a bit loose. He rolled his shoulders, feeling a knot that he’d not known he had, disappear from his stomach. He clenched one fist, feeling the heavy lancer’s ring on his finger. “He is.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Vlora sat in a wicker chair in the yard of Willem Marsh, one of Landfall’s most popular outdoor coffeehouses. The sun had set but the Landfall boardwalk remained loud, well lit, and crowded. The docks creaked with the movement of the sea while sailors fought over dice and prostitutes. Vlora sipped her coffee and stared into the crowd, waiting for the inevitable knife fight to break out.

  Pit, it was good to be back in a real city again.

  She felt a hand briefly squeeze her shoulder, then Olem dropped into the chair beside her, his fingers rolling a new cigarette before he’d even settled.

  “Well?” she asked.

  Olem smiled at her from behind a sudden cloud of smoke. It was a cool, easy smile—one she hadn’t seen for months—and it made her heart skip a beat. “I found us a room,” he said. “At the Angry Wart in Upper Landfall. Running hot water, nightly pig roast, and a bed we could sleep
head to foot across the width.”

  “I intend to do very little sleeping.”

  Olem leaned toward her, wiggling his eyebrows. “I don’t intend on sleeping, either.”

  Vlora rolled her eyes.

  “Because of my Knack,” Olem explained in mock earnestness. “I don’t need sleep.”

  “I know!” Vlora took the cigarette from him and took a drag before handing it back. She held the smoke in for a moment, then slowly exhaled it through her nostrils. “And you know exactly what I meant.”

  Olem smirked. Of course he knew what she meant, the prig. “The room costs a small fortune, but I think it’ll be worth—”

  Vlora punched him in the shoulder. “Report, soldier.”

  “Right,” Olem said, rubbing his shoulder. “Michel was as good as his word. He’s given us an old barracks on the edge of Greenfire Depths and sent over a few hundred boxes’ worth of files the Blackhats keep on Greenfire Depths and the Palo activity in the city. I’ve got my sharpest boys reading through it all, but it’ll take them days. Even then we won’t know how much they held back.”

  Vlora nodded, pleased at how quickly Olem had organized the effort—as well as the idea of a hot bath and a large bed. They needed alone time that was hard to get in a mercenary camp in the middle of the swamp. “Have you gotten anything out of your contacts?”

  “It’ll take me weeks to set up any sort of intelligence network,” Olem said, puffing out his cheeks and slowly letting them deflate. “I can’t decide if the Blackhats will make it easier or harder. Practically everyone in the city sells information, but most of it goes directly to them.”

  “Do the best you can,” Vlora said, reaching over and squeezing Olem’s hand. “You ask anyone about Mama Palo?”

  Olem snorted. “Yeah, and everyone has a different answer. She’s either an enemy of the state, a freedom fighter, or a Palo god made flesh, depending on who you ask.”

  Vlora felt her skin crawl. “I’ve dealt with enough gods for one lifetime, thank you very much.” She thought briefly about the Adran-Kez War, an involuntary chill creeping down her spine. “My entire family died killing the last one we encountered.”