Sins of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  “What are you going on about?”

  “Awake?” Styke asked.

  The Old Man groaned. “Barely.” His voice was stronger now. “Thanks to you and your damned eyes. Things were going well, you know. Ibana been running the business for the last few years. Raking in the money. I was going to die a rich man. Now they’ve wrecked it all.”

  “Not all of it,” Styke said.

  “The shop at the market, too. They wrecked that last night. Found it a mess this morning, rushed home to find them tossing the house. There were thirty of the bastards, and they just kept asking where you were. Bastards. All of you.”

  “Them,” Styke corrected absently. In his head, he was doing calculations, figuring out who he’d have to ask to track down thirty Blackhats, and how hard it would be to get rid of all those bodies. Jackal would probably help.

  “All of you,” the Old Man insisted, glaring at Styke. “I knew I should have told you to go stuff it the moment you walked through my door. You were always bad luck.”

  “Where’s Ibana?” Styke asked.

  “Still on her trip. She’ll be back in a few … few days.” The Old Man closed his eyes. He was fading, and Styke hoped he was going to pass out, and not away. “God, she’ll be pissed. Gonna skin you alive.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Well, now I mean it. Pit. Have one of the boys wait on the edge of town to warn her. Don’t want her messing with the Blackhats. I …” Fles trailed off, then sullenly said, “They took my sword. The latest I was working on. Didn’t even have the dignity to smash it. Stole the bloody thing straight off.” The flatness in his voice alarmed Styke more than any emotion, but the Old Man’s eyes were closed against Styke’s worrying glance.

  “Rest,” Styke said, climbing to his feet.

  “Don’t do it,” Fles responded.

  “Eh?”

  “Don’t do that fool thing you’re thinking about doing.”

  “I’m not thinking about doing anything,” Styke said. “Gotta make sure you’re okay.”

  “Take me for a fool?”

  In truth, Styke hadn’t been considering much of anything. He wondered where the Blackhats would head next, and hoped Jackal was able to lie low. He considered sending one of the apprentices to Lady Flint to ask her to hide Celine, but he didn’t want to get her involved in this. Whatever “this” was. Styke wasn’t entirely sure, though a thought had crept into his head—the very one Fles was telling him not to consider—and he decided immediately on his course of action.

  “No,” he said quietly. “I never took you for a fool.” When there was no answer he looked down to find Fles had passed out again. He checked to make certain the Old Man’s heart was still beating, then headed toward the workshop, only to stop in the great room, hand on the handle of his knife. A figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the lamplit street.

  The figure turned his face toward the light. It was Colonel Olem, wearing plain frontiersman’s clothes and a felt half hat. His usual cigarette was gone, replaced by a twig. He squinted through the dim light at Styke, then stepped outside and took a long, hard look at the placard beside the door.

  “Friend of yours?” he asked.

  Styke grunted an affirmative.

  Olem chewed aggressively on the twig. “Blackhats do this?” he asked.

  Styke felt his heart skip a beat. “How’d you know?”

  “Gang of ’em showed up at Loel’s Fort right after you left.”

  “Looking for me?”

  “Looking for you,” Olem echoed.

  So much for not dragging Lady Flint into this. When it rained, his sister used to say, it poured. And shit was falling from the sky right now. “So she knows.”

  “Knows that you’re a war criminal?” Olem said.

  Styke took two strides forward, reaching for his knife, before he realized that Olem had staged it as a question, not a statement. Styke growled in the back of his throat. “I’m no war criminal. Not by any court in this land. Convicted of ignoring orders, yes. But any crime I’ve committed was for this country, and I’ll ask you not to repeat that accusation.”

  Olem considered him, unflinching, looking him up and down. Styke thought of the Palo clearing the streets and slamming their doors as he passed and considered what he must have looked like—a giant, caked in blood, covered in a dozen nicks and cuts, his shirt sliced open. It all hurt; a fresh, wakeful pain that he’d ignored since the moment the apprentice had urgently called his name. Olem seemed suitably impressed, but unafraid, and Styke was struck by a random thought—the former bodyguard of the legendary Field Marshal Tamas was probably a son of a bitch to play against in cards.

  “That seems fair,” Olem said. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Read a few books. Talked to your old friends. You don’t strike me as a war criminal.”

  “Then why are you here?” Styke asked. Olem wasn’t stupid. If he was here to express Flint’s displeasure, or to arrest Styke in the name of the Lady Chancellor, he would be in uniform, and probably backed by a whole regiment.

  Olem held out his hand. “To give you this.”

  Styke took a stack of krana notes, rolling it between his fingers, inadvertently smearing them in blood. He handed them back. “I don’t want it.”

  “Five thousand krana. It’s your pay for two weeks’ work.”

  “I didn’t earn five thousand krana.”

  “And a little extra on the side,” Olem admitted.

  Styke swallowed a lump in his throat. Never mind that his purpose had been to infiltrate the Riflejacks. He was beginning to like them, and their commanding officer. He’d been beginning to fit in, feel like a real soldier again. “Flint is cutting me loose?”

  “Sorry,” Olem said, and sounded like he meant it. He held out the money again.

  “Give it to Celine when she’s old enough,” Styke said, pushing past Olem. “Take care of her for me. Keep her out of the Blackhats’ hands.” It was a lot to ask, and he expected Olem to shake his head.

  Instead, Olem said softly, “You’re not taking her with you?”

  “Not where I’m going.” The Old Man was right. Styke was going to be an idiot. But it was the only route he could foresee, the only stratagem that didn’t end with everyone he’d ever known tortured by the Blackhats. He paused in the street just outside the Fles manor and turned back to Olem. “I didn’t escape from the labor camp,” he said. “I only tried once, and halfheartedly at that.”

  “Why not?” Olem asked. “I saw what you did to that dragonman.”

  Styke looked at the blood on his fingers, remembering all the beatings he’d endured silently at the hands of the labor camp guards. He remembered every sleepless night from the ache of his old wounds, every day in the sun pulling sledges or mucking out trenches in the marshes. “Because I didn’t want my life to end up like this. I’m a wolf, not a cur, and I won’t flee for the rest of my life. Better to serve my sentence and be released on my own free will than to escape. Whatever they’ve done to me, I’m still Ben Styke, and I’ve got my pride.

  “I didn’t escape,” he continued. “I was released. I thought maybe I was really free. That I could create a new life. But the Lady Chancellor only fears what she can’t control, and so …” He shrugged, then began to trudge down the street. “I like Lady Flint. When you see her next time, tell her to be wary of a man named Gregious Tampo.”

  “You know Tampo?” Olem asked sharply.

  “Not really,” Styke said without turning around. “But he’s the one who released me from the camps.”

  “Where are you going? What are you going to do?” Olem called after him.

  “I’m going to make an appointment to kill a man.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Michel was left alone in the tiny office above the Palo Herald printshop. His hands and feet were tied, his knife and knuckledusters taken by the big Palo woman, and the door to the office locked from the outside for good measure. His jaw ached and head p
ounded from the two blows to his head, and his ribs and chest hurt from a handful of kicks and punches they’d thrown in when he tried to talk his way out of … whatever it was they had planned for him. His bribery attempt had gone little better, earning him a cut over his ear.

  He’d expected the beatings to begin immediately and continue until he broke down and told them who he was and what he worked for, but the moment they found his Silver Rose they trussed him up like a hog and carried him up to the office. He could see one of the Palo, a middle-aged man with a fierce scar beneath one eye, standing guard just outside.

  He could probably pick through his ropes. He might even be able to jimmy the lock with something he found in the office. But he didn’t think his chances of taking on a Palo guard—maybe even more than one—were very good with his head swimming.

  If he lived through this, he was going to be very sore in the morning.

  The hours crawled along as midday came and went, the tiny room heating up to an unbearable degree. Sweat poured from every pore, leaving him completely soaked through. He considered plan after plan, discarding each for the high probability of failure. He’d always been better at talking than running or fighting, and even though they’d discovered his Silver Rose he was still willing to do just that. If he couldn’t bribe them or convince them to let him go, maybe he could get them to ransom him back to the Millinery.

  Having to be ransomed back to the Millinery would send his career into a tailspin. Of course, a destroyed career was better than winding up in several pieces on Fidelis Jes’s desk …

  He considered every possible story he could tell his captors, and none of them seemed promising. His head continued to pound, his tongue dry. He was beginning to think he would faint when there was a brief commotion from downstairs and then slow, even steps on the stairs outside the office. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d been captured, but he hoped they were going to move him. Another minute in this heat would kill him sure as torture.

  The door opened, and Michel looked up to see a man in a fine black suit, top hat in one hand and cane in the other. He was tall, thin, with black hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. Michel felt his heart drop into his stomach.

  Tampo. Gregious Tampo. Michel noted the irony that after all this time and effort spent in hunting the bastard he had wound up on the wrong end of what would surely be a long and painful torture session. He licked his lips, wondering how long he would be able to hold out against questioning. Not long, probably. He’d always suspected that deep down, he was a coward.

  Guess it was time to find out.

  Tampo frowned at Michel, squinted in the low light, then pulled out a snuff box and took a pinch, holding his fingers delicately beneath his nose and sniffing. He looked again and sighed. “Get him some tea.”

  A few moments later Michel’s arms were unbound and he gratefully chugged the contents of a waterskin, far too thirsty to care if it was poisoned. Tampo watched him drink, then turned and headed back downstairs, leaving Michel alone and unguarded. Hesitantly, not sure what kind of trap could be worse than his current predicament, Michel followed him down to the printshop.

  The Palo made themselves scarce at a nod from Tampo, and Tampo turned to face Michel, leaning casually against the printing press in the center of the room. Michel glanced around furtively, trying to work out an escape route. The Palo were probably within earshot, but if Michel could get the drop on Tampo maybe he could make it back to his cab just outside the city.

  If the cab was still waiting.

  Fuzzy-headed and sore, Michel didn’t like his chances of escape. Tampo’s expression was neutral, even friendly, and Michel wondered whether he was going to get a chance to talk his way out of this after all.

  “This is awkward,” Tampo finally said.

  “I imagine it is, isn’t it?” Michel responded.

  “Has it been you that’s been after me all this time?”

  Michel frowned at Tampo. This was the first time he’d actually seen him, but there was something awfully familiar about him, like he was a childhood friend long forgotten. “I’ve been on the case for about eight days,” he responded.

  “Shit,” Tampo said. He picked his teeth with one immaculately clean fingernail, then knocked his cane against the base of the printing press. He seemed more annoyed than angry, and Michel was wondering when the other shoe would drop. “Well, I suppose there’s really nothing we can do about it, is there?”

  Michel was deeply confused. He’d half-expected Tampo to come in swinging that cane. Not for him to offer him tea and a double-helping of mild annoyance. Tampo shook his head, pinched the bridge of his nose, and remained that way for several seconds. Michel was just beginning to think something was wrong when Tampo’s face … changed.

  The change was not enormous. His eyes grew a little wider apart. His hair suddenly seemed to have some premature gray, and his mustache disappeared entirely. His nose became a little more hawkish, his cheekbones higher and haughtier, his lips thinner. In the course of about five seconds, Tampo became an entirely different man. The two men—Tampo, and the one that now stood before Michel—could have been cousins, but they would never have been mistaken for each other.

  And Michel immediately knew why Tampo was so frustrated. He found himself sighing, too, partly in relief, partly at the stupidity of it all.

  “Hello, Taniel,” Michel said. “Why the pit didn’t you tell me you were going to print a bloody pamphlet?”

  CHAPTER 35

  Styke entered the front gate of the Millinery, unopposed. A guard, slack-jawed, watched him limp through the archway, then yelled something unintelligible over his shoulder as Styke approached the old man sitting watch behind a counter just outside the gate. The old Blackhat snoozed quietly, slumped sideways in his chair, notebook slipping from his fingers.

  “I understand Fidelis Jes takes appointments for fights,” Styke said.

  The old Blackhat snorted, rubbed his nose, and pushed himself upright in his chair while stifling a yawn. “Right, right,” he said. “I’ll take your name. Wait is a couple weeks. You can back out anytime before then if your blood cools.”

  “I’m going to fight him today.”

  The old Blackhat’s eyelids fluttered and he scowled down at his notebook. “Don’t you read the papers? The grand master only duels during the mornings, and he’s all booked up. No exceptions.”

  “He’ll make an exception for me.” Styke picked at the dried blood on his arms, watching it flake off and fall to the cobbles. He wondered if Old Man Fles would make it to the morning, and if it was cruel of him to allow the Old Man to die alone. But he wouldn’t be alone, Styke reasoned with himself. Fles would die surrounded by friends. Unlike Styke, who wondered briefly if he’d always been destined to die surrounded by enemies.

  “Hilarious,” the old Blackhat said. “I’ll take your name and address and we’ll let you know when to keep your appointment.”

  “Benjamin Styke. Colonel. First Division, Third Cavalry, Mad Lancers.”

  “A soldier, eh? Usually you guys are smarter than …” The old Blackhat trailed off, his mouth working silently. From somewhere inside the Millinery came the sound of shouting, and the watchman finally looked up, mouth hanging open at Styke’s appearance. “Oh,” he said breathlessly. “It’s you.”

  “It’s me,” Styke confirmed. “Tell Fidelis Jes I’m going to make a hand puppet out of his worthless corpse. I’ve told a dozen newspapers I’m on my way here, so if he tries to make me disappear the whole city will know him for a bloody coward.” A lie, but a plausible one.

  The guard lurched from his chair and backed away from Styke. “I’ll, uh, give him the message. Give me just a few … moments.” He bolted into the Millinery. The shouting got closer, and Styke was soon aware of the heavy tromp of feet. The narrow gate filled with faces as Blackhats crowded just inside, bristling with weapons from blunderbusses to cudgels. Feet shuffled and men jostled for position as they tried
to look intimidating—while they stayed well out of arm’s reach.

  Styke leaned against the watchman’s post, cleaning his nails and contemplating his mortality.

  He did not expect to leave the Millinery alive. He didn’t feel any real fear—he’d never desired death, but the prospect had never particularly phased him, either. He was here to die, and he suspected it would be by the hands of the very mob gathered just inside. He’d take a few of them with him, if he could, but his only real goal was to go down with bits of Fidelis Jes’s brains on his shirt.

  He pictured Fidelis Jes as he last saw him—thin, muscular, his neck a little too thick and his head a little too narrow, making him look like a nub of pencil stuck on a body, looking smug as he watched Styke’s firing squad take aim. Styke froze that smile in his mind’s eye and wondered what it would look like when he popped Jes’s head between his palms like a ripe melon. The Blackhats would gun him down as soon as their leader expired, but Styke would die with a grin.

  He had a few regrets. He wished he hadn’t been forced to double-time Lady Flint. He regretted not saying he was sorry to Ibana. He wanted to know what Tampo’s real plans were for Landfall.

  He wished he could have watched Celine grow up.

  “Colonel Styke?” a voice asked.

  Styke came out of his reverie to find a woman of about thirty standing between him and the mob of Blackhats. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Dellina. I’m the grand master’s secretary. I understand you’re here about personal combat with the grand master.”

  “I have no interest in waiting.”

  “Of course,” Dellina said, smiling professionally. If she was put off by his bloody state, she didn’t show it. “And we have no intention of keeping you waiting. The grand master is in a meeting right now but he left strict instructions to be summoned when you arrived. He should be here anytime.”

  Styke felt a knot form in his stomach. “He was expecting me.”