Sins of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  “Those charges,” Olem said. “The two charges at the Battle of Landfall. You knew you were going to win those?”

  Styke felt the memory flood him. He could almost taste the sweat and stench of the battle, the heat of burning buildings and racket of an artillery bombardment. He savored it. “Sounds arrogant when I say it out loud. But yeah, I knew I’d win. Nothing stood before me and my lancers. We wore enchanted armor, stuff that saw its heyday four hundred years ago, and it shrugged off bullets and sorcery like a parasol does rain.”

  “What happened to that armor?” Olem asked.

  Styke could still hear his voice echo in the helmet and feel the reassuring weight of medieval plate on his shoulders. When he flexed his fingers he could almost imagine the lance back in his hand once more, the feel of his ring pressing against its wooden handle. “Lindet confiscated it after the war. Don’t know what happened after that.”

  “Pity,” Olem said.

  Flint leaned back in her chair, glass dangling from her hands. Styke had heard it took a lot to make a powder mage drunk, and her eyes were barely foggy after a whole bottle of wine. “I want to know something,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Taniel Two-shot. Was he really a hero around here?” Before Styke could answer, she continued. “I mean, I’ve heard some of the stories, and I’ve heard his name spoken in conjunction with the war. But back then, when the whole thing happened, was he really as big of a war hero as they say?”

  Styke tried to remember everything he could about Taniel Two-shot. It had been a long time. “People liked him. It was romantic. A young powder mage, out there avenging his mother’s death against the Kez cabal almost two decades after the fact. That and fighting for Fatrastan independence to boot. The newspapers loved to write about him.”

  “Did the Palo take to him? I’ve heard rumors that they did, but I’ve never actually asked anyone.”

  “I think so,” Styke said. “Like I said, I only actually met him once. We fought through the Battle of Planth together, and he saved my life by putting two bullets through a Warden’s skull.” He paused, trying to recall newspaper articles he’d read after his imprisonment. “Yes,” he said more confidently, “the Palo did take to him. One became his guide and he took her back to Adro with him, and …” Styke trailed off, remembering who, exactly, he was talking to. He cleared his throat. “They say the two of them got married just before their death at the end of the Adran-Kez War.”

  Flint was entirely unreadable. “They never got married,” she said.

  “Ah.” Styke wasn’t going to push that subject.

  “She wasn’t a Palo, either,” Flint said, looking away. “She was Dynize. Her name was Ka-poel, and she was a bone-eye sorcerer with enough power to … well. She was incredibly powerful.”

  Styke remembered her. He remembered her better than he remembered Two-shot, if he was being honest. He could smell the blood sorcery on her, and see the playful confidence that seemed so strange in the eyes of a Palo youth. “A Dynize,” he echoed. “Didn’t know there were any in the swamps.”

  “She was a refugee of some sort,” Flint said. “Was adopted by a Palo tribe as a child. Taniel talked about her in his letters, and then I met her later, after he brought her back and—after things were over between the two of us. I hated her at first. Thought she had taken Taniel away from me. But then I realized that he was still mine when he got back, and that it was only after I did what I did that she claimed him for herself.”

  Styke glanced over at Olem, who remained silent through the whole thing. The two were obviously longtime lovers, and it couldn’t be easy to live in the shadow of someone like Taniel Two-shot. But Olem just gave Styke a small, knowing smile, and rolled himself a cigarette. “You’re getting drunk,” Olem said softly to Flint.

  “Yup,” Flint answered. “Doesn’t happen often. Feels kind of good to talk about it.” Her eyes focused on Styke, and she said, “I like you. I have no idea why, but I do.”

  “Because we’re both killers,” Styke said before he could stop himself. He held his breath, but Flint just gave him a rueful smile.

  “To killers,” she said, raising her glass.

  Styke clinked his against hers. He sensed it was time for him to leave the two of them alone, and stood up, finding that Celine was already fast asleep in his arms. He put her over his shoulder. “I saw a dragonman tonight,” he said.

  Some of the haze across Flint’s face seemed to lift. “Really?”

  “He’s not a Palo. He’s a Dynize.”

  Flint seemed to sober slightly. “What the pit is a Dynize dragonman doing in Landfall?” she mused, more to herself than to him.

  “He knew of the other one. The one you killed. Said his name was Sebbith or something like that. If they knew each other, I’m guessing they were both Dynize. But I don’t know why they’re here.”

  “Find out,” Flint said.

  Styke sighed. He found himself liking—even respecting—Lady Flint more and more. If he did have to kill her it was going to be a challenge in more ways than one. But for now, they were on the same side. “I’ll draw him out,” he promised.

  Vlora watched Styke carry Celine through the door. From the window she saw him cross the muster yard, and she was struck once again by the contrast of the man gently carrying a child that was not his own, and the killer she’d witnessed down in the Depths.

  “Did you see him fight tonight?” she asked Olem.

  “I didn’t,” Olem said. “I was too busy aiming at the assholes coming after you.”

  There might have been a note of reproach in his voice, though Vlora didn’t know if she deserved it. She stood by her choice to attend the gala alone. “He came up behind one of the Palo silent as a ghost. He put that knife through the guy’s sternum, then tossed him like a toy.”

  “The stories all said Ben Styke was the strongest man in Fatrasta.”

  “I wasn’t confident it was Ben Styke until now,” Vlora said. “But damn.” She took another drink. The wine was loosening her lips, maybe a bit too much, but her heart rate had finally returned to normal. She looked at Olem, feeling a stab of regret. He was a soldier, and he was used to friends dying in battle, but she knew that he worried for her all the same. She suddenly felt all the things that she’d been unfair about over the years.

  It was unfair to head off alone on a mission of unknown danger. It was unfair to pull rank. It was unfair to turn down his proposals for marriage when she had no intention of ever leaving him. It was unfair to put off having children, when they both wanted them.

  It was unfair of her to lie.

  “Olem,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you remember after the end of the war? In the blood and the chaos when all those bodies were lost at Skyline Palace?”

  “Quite well, yes.” Olem’s voice was flat, controlled, his lips clamped firmly around his cigarette. Vlora knew the pain the memory caused him, and was reluctant to add to it. No one had been closer to Field Marshal Tamas than Olem those last few months.

  Her mouth tasted sour. She licked her lips, considering the secret she had kept for ten years. It had always felt like it wasn’t hers to give, and yet now she knew it was foolish not to share it. “I’ve been telling myself and everyone else for ten years that Taniel and Ka-poel died during that fight. But they didn’t. They survived the explosion and slipped away in the chaos.”

  Olem sucked on his cigarette, staring at her through the smoke. “I figured,” he said.

  “How?”

  “You never grieved.”

  Vlora cleared her throat. Faithful, trustworthy Olem. The bastard knew all along. By Adom, he was the best present a commanding officer could ever get. “I love you,” she said.

  “I figured that, too.” He handed her his cigarette, then said, “Why do you bring it up now?”

  “Because they told me they were heading to Fatrasta. This was ten years ago, but I’m worried they’re still her
e. I’m worried they’re involved in all of this shit. I would have sensed his sorcery if they were in the city, but still … I’m worried. If they do get involved, I can’t imagine it’ll be on Lindet’s side, and Olem? I can’t fight Taniel or Ka-poel. Neither of them was quite human when they left, and they’re out of my league.” And I don’t want to fight them.

  “Well,” Olem said, lighting a new cigarette, “we better hope they aren’t still around then.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Michel struggled through the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep and unable to work, trying to come up with some kind of plan for capturing the two enemies of the state that Fidelis Jes so desperately wanted brought in.

  His first major decision was to discard his search for Styke. Half the Millinery was already looking for the old veteran, and Michel adding himself to that list would do little good. No, he needed to focus on his current goal, that of capturing Tampo. Tampo, if he could track the bastard down, would almost certainly lead him to Styke.

  And if all the other sods searching for Styke managed to bring him in, Michel might be able to use that to find Tampo.

  It was sound logic, but it didn’t help him sleep.

  He tossed and turned in his small attic apartment on the southern edge of the plateau before finally crawling out of bed and pulling on some clothes, heading unshaven into the first splash of morning light and taking a hackney cab a mile across town to the Proctor market, where he stopped to fill a crate with breads and fruit before heading on foot through the still-sleepy streets.

  Proctor was the kind of town in which, in those few moments he allowed himself to wonder what it would be like to settle down and have a family, he imagined himself living. It wasn’t too clean, or too dirty, or too rich or poor. It was absolutely average in every way, and Michel loved that in a place like this he could be as friendly or anonymous as he liked.

  In some ways he lived vicariously through his mother—idle days, reading books and chatting with neighbors, staying out of the sun.

  The thought brought him up short next to a bookstore, and he stared through the front window as sellers carried crates of penny novels out onto the sidewalk to entice passersby. He chewed on his lip, trying not to think of everything he should be doing right now.

  “Don’t encourage her,” he said softly to himself. “It only makes things worse.”

  “Oh, come on. I can be a good son once in a while.”

  “You can either be a good son by taking care of her, or you can be a good son by exacerbating her bad habits. You can’t be both.”

  He rolled his eyes at himself. “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t get to be everything, Michel. You have to choose.”

  Michel ignored the raised eyebrows of one of the booksellers and told himself to shut the pit up before stepping inside and looking around for the more expensive, leather-bound novels in the back. He flipped through a few at random, remembering a time when he used to read almost as much as his mother, and then selected three adventurous-sounding titles and raised a hand for one of the clerks.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I’ll take these,” Michel said.

  “Thank you, sir,” the clerk said. “We’ll take care of the bill.”

  Michel blinked at the clerk for several seconds before realizing he was wearing his Blackhat uniform. Even though he kept his Silver Rose hidden on a necklace, it wasn’t hard to tell what he was. He dug into his pocket for a wad of krana. “I don’t mind paying,” he said.

  “It’s all right, sir,” the clerk said. “Thank you for your patronage.”

  Michel was rarely bothered by the perks that came along with his job. Free stuff was, after all, one of the best and he took advantage of it when he could. But the idea of buying books for his mother on Blackhat goodwill felt a little … off.

  “Speaking of which,” he muttered to himself, looking out the window at the crates of penny novels sitting on a table on the sidewalk. A familiar figure was already perusing the selection, even though the store had only been open for minutes. Michel sighed to himself, looking instinctively for the back exit, before turning back to the clerk. “Could you wrap these up for me, please? Also, I’d like to pay for anything that woman out there wants to buy.” He thrust a ten-krana note into the clerk’s hands before he could object, then stepped outside.

  His mother stood by the penny novels, flipping through them thoughtfully, humming to herself and dancing slightly to the tune.

  “Morning, Mother.”

  She jumped, turning to Michel with a look of surprise. “Michel! What are you doing here?”

  Michel put on his most charming smile. “Just stopped in to pick something up for my mother,” he said. “Was going to drop some food by your house on my way into work.”

  A torrent of emotions crossed his mother’s face as he spoke. First she was surprised, then pleased, then her face fell to frustration and anger, all in the space of a few seconds. By the time he said the word “work” she looked downright furious.

  She snatched him by the arm, pulling him around the corner of the bookshop and into the closest alley and then turning on him with a finger thrust up under his nose.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Michel?” she demanded.

  Michel braced himself, his heart falling. “Shouldn’t have bothered,” he muttered to himself.

  “What do you mean? Speak up, child!” She glared at his uniform, looking him up and down with the kind of disgust most mothers would upon finding their children naked in the streets. “Wearing that uniform? Coming around my neighborhood? What are the neighbors going to think? What are the bookshop owners going to think? I’m respected and liked around here!”

  “I didn’t even look to see what I was wearing,” Michel said with a calming gesture, hoping that the shouting wouldn’t attract attention. He didn’t need this, not today.

  “Hm!” his mother said, turning away from him. She fumed at the wall of the alley, looking at him sidelong.

  “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like what I do for a living. I try not to complicate your life with it. But I was just trying to do something nice.”

  “Don’t like what you …?” his mother sputtered. “It’s not that I don’t like it, Michel. It’s that you’re a Blackhat! My pappy—your grandpappy—was a full-blood Palo. Your father died fighting for our freedom against the Kez. What would they think to see you in that getup? Can’t you see what you are, Michel? You’re a thug! Every day you work for Lindet is another day you grind your birthright into the mud.”

  “Now wait just a minute,” Michel said, feeling his own blood begin to rise. “That’s going too far. I’m not a thug. I don’t beat people up. I do some training, some liaison work. I’m respected doing what I do.”

  “It’s not respect if it depends on fear.”

  “I meant to the people I work with.”

  “And I’m talking about the people you Blackhats tramp into the dust. I’m not a fool. I read the papers and listen to the gossip. Not even Lindet can keep a lid on all the news in this city. Did you know that just two streets down from my house a young woman was murdered by Blackhats for handing out flyers? Flyers, Michel!”

  Michel glanced over his shoulder. “Please keep your voice down, Mother.”

  “Or what? You’re going to drag me to the Millinery dungeons? Your own mother? I think Lindet’s a downright bitch, and I don’t mind who hears it. She’s a tyrant, and you Blackhats are her bullies, and I don’t want my son associated with them. Is that too much?” Her voice continued to rise in pitch till Michel was certain that people out on the street could hear her clearly.

  “I’m not a … It’s not … Mother, it’s more complicated than that.”

  His mother took several deep breaths, her jaw quivering. He hadn’t seen her worked up like this for years, and he wondered if it was the murder of the girl she mentioned. That kind of thing might be commonplace in Mic
hel’s world, but it would have shaken his mother deeply.

  “You’re a good boy,” she said quietly. “And every time I see you in that outfit I’m reminded what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “It’s just …”

  His mother suddenly lifted her handbag, rifling around inside it for a few moments and then thrusting something in Michel’s face. He took it from her absently, trying to finish his sentence, but when his eyes focused on the pamphlet he felt his heart fall. The now-familiar words Sins of Empire were printed on the front.

  “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

  “A nice young man was handing it out yesterday,” she said. “You need to read it, Michel. It’s the kind of truth you need to hear.”

  “Who?” he asked angrily. “What young man?”

  His mother took half a step back, staring at him in shock, then raising her chin. “Don’t think I’m going to tell you. I’m trying to help you now, and you need to listen to me for once. This pamphlet—”

  “I know all about this pamphlet,” Michel said, shoving it in his pocket and pushing her farther into the alley. He whispered urgently. “Mother, you can’t be seen with one of these. They’re cracking down on this very thing right now, and if they find one on you, they might …”

  “They might what? Throw an old woman in prison?”

  “They might!”

  “Let them,” she snapped. “I’m not the bumbling old fool you take me for. Your father and I protested the Kez in Little Starland. I loaded muskets for the Thirteenth during the war. I can handle prison.”

  “It’s not just that, it’s—”

  She cut him off again. “Worried about your career? Worried that your old mom might ruin your chance of advancement?”