Sins of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  Lucky for him, he was very good at compartmentalizing his emotions. But he wasn’t perfect. “What am I waiting for?”

  Taniel frowned. “You know better than to ask that.”

  Compartmentalize. If I don’t actually know my final goal, then I won’t be able to spill it if my cover is blown and I’m tortured. “I know,” Michel said, taking a deep breath. “But sometimes …”

  “You want to know that it’s worth the trouble?”

  Michel nodded.

  “I won’t fill your head with false promises,” Taniel said.

  “You’ve never claimed to.”

  Taniel reached over and placed his hand on the back of Michel’s neck, grasping him in a brotherly embrace. He peered deep into his eyes, as if looking for something. There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Taniel pulled back, a thoughtful scowl on his face. “You’re a Silver Rose now?”

  Michel showed him the Silver Rose looped around his neck.

  “Do you think you have a shot at becoming a Gold Rose?”

  “I do,” Michel said, then corrected himself. “Well, I did. Fidelis Jes is furious about the Iron Roses you stole. He promised to make me a Gold Rose if I brought you in.”

  “And if you fail to bring me in?”

  “I’ll be demoted.” Michel didn’t have to mention that a demotion would destroy years of hard work. The very thought made him anxious, tightening something deep in the pit of his stomach.

  Taniel nodded, his thoughts seemingly far away. “We need you in the Blackhats more than ever right now.”

  Michel raised his eyebrows. He wondered briefly if Taniel was dedicated enough to the cause to hand himself over, but rejected the idea. Taniel was the Red Hand. Without him, the change that they wished to enact would never come about. “I might be able to string Fidelis Jes along for a couple more weeks. But he’s already impatient, and something has him on edge. I can’t guarantee that he won’t pull me from the mission any day now.”

  “Do Silver Roses have access to Blackhat records?” Taniel asked.

  He obviously had something in mind, but Michel needed to be careful in his questioning. If Taniel revealed too much, their whole effort could be at risk. “Some of them.”

  “Anything regarding sorcery?”

  “No,” Michel said. “Absolutely not. I know they exist—the Blackhats keep information on all the Knacked, powder mages, and Privileged in Fatrasta and the Nine. But that kind of information is only privy to the Gold Roses, Fidelis Jes, the Lady Chancellor, and Lindet’s private cabal.”

  “Right,” Taniel said, chewing his words like he had something sour in his mouth. “But a Gold Rose could find out about sorcerous artifacts?”

  “I … think so?”

  Taniel sat back, drumming his gloved fingers on the head of his cane. “I’m not sure if think so is good enough.”

  “If it’s not …”

  “It’ll have to be,” Taniel suddenly said, shooting to his feet and pacing the length of the room. “We need information, Michel. We think the Lady Chancellor is looking for something called the godstones, and we need to know how close she is to them.”

  Michel sat up straight. His assignment had always been so vague; this was the first time he’d been given any indication of a clear goal. It was electrifying. And frightening. “I can’t find out that information as a Silver Rose.”

  “Then we’ll have to get you your Gold,” Taniel said, consulting a pocket watch. “Be back here in eighteen hours. Bring lots of friends.”

  Michel got to his feet, feeling slightly dizzy at the sudden changes to his mission. This was happening. “What am I going to find?”

  “You,” Taniel said, heading toward the door, “are going to find exactly what Fidelis Jes wants.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Why am I still alive?

  It was the foremost question in Styke’s mind as he was pulled roughly from the back of the Blackhat paddy wagon and carried through the darkness. A dozen hands held him by the shoulders and legs, carrying him like a corpse, letting him swing and bump around every corner, his ass hitting every rock they crossed. The stink of the marshes filled his nostrils like the recurrence of a bad dream, and he knew from the creak of the gate, the cold breeze, and that horrid stench that he was back in the labor camp where he’d spent the last ten years of his life.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Jes was supposed to die, squealing like a pig, and Styke soon after him. What had gone wrong? Was Styke overconfident? Was he too wounded and worn out from his fight with the dragonman? Was he too crippled and old? Or was Fidelis Jes just that good?

  Likely he’d never know.

  His carriers constantly dropped him, their hands slipping on the slick blood that coated his body. Each scrape or jolt sent another lance of pain through his body. His once-good hand had gone completely numb, and the stab wound in his leg and shoulder both screamed out. He bit down on his tongue until he couldn’t feel that, either, and wondered whether he’d bitten clear through it.

  What did it matter if he did?

  He kept his eyes closed—it was pitch-black but for the occasional lantern, so there wasn’t much to see anyway—but he heard doors open and close, felt himself change directions a number of times, and when they finally came to a stop he guessed he was in the labor camp infirmary.

  “On the count of three,” a male voice said over his shoulder. “One, two, hup!”

  Styke was half-lifted, half-thrown on a cold marble slab. He inhaled sharply, using all his focus not to scream. By the pit, this hurt. No, he decided, this had gone beyond hurt. He was cut up, humiliated, and his wrist … he’d never hold a knife again. He might not even hold a cup again.

  “He’s all yours,” the voice said. “You, stitch him up. And the rest of you—the grand master wants him to heal for a few months, then you can do anything you want to him, short of killing him.”

  Styke heard the shuffle of feet leaving the room and finally opened his eyes. He found himself the focus of four guards and the camp doctor, a squirrelly little man by the name of Set. The infirmary had been cleared of patients and Styke was lying on one of the morgue slabs in the far corner.

  The others gathered around him in a semicircle, and when he blinked one said, “Son of a bitch, he’s still awake.”

  Styke let his head fall to one side and identified the speaker as Vladiar, a Rosvelean with a high-pitched voice and a neck as thick as a melon. He was the one whose cousin Styke had attacked after the parole hearing a few weeks ago. In fact, Styke recognized all four of the guards. They were Jeffron, Landral, and Zach, the most infamous guards in Sweetwallow.

  “I can’t believe he’s still alive,” Landral said. He had a wonky lip, and drool tended to slip out the side when he talked. He wiped away a rope of it with his sleeve.

  “All that blood on him his?” Zach asked.

  Vladiar grunted. “That’s what the Bronze Rose said.”

  “Nobody bleeds that much and lives through it.” That was put forward by Set, the doctor. Styke focused his eyes on the needle and thread clutched in one of Set’s hands and the way they trembled. Set hadn’t been a good doctor before he got the palsy. “Don’t know how they expect us to keep him alive.”

  “Us? You, more like,” Vladiar said. “We’re just here to make sure he doesn’t tear you in half.”

  Set paced from one side of the infirmary to the other, needle held in thumb and forefinger, the other hand on his chin. “Have you seen him? He’s not going anywhere. The tendon is slit on that wrist—he’ll never use it again—and that knife wound on his leg looks deep. Probably won’t walk, either.” He approached Styke and bent down to look him in the eye. Styke stared back, impassive, all his efforts going to keep himself from whimpering.

  “We best get some straps,” Set said. “Landral, fetch some of that rope they use for the sledges.”

  Landral scoffed, but headed out of the room.

  Vladiar pushed Set out of the
way and hunkered down at eye level with Styke. “You in there, big man?” He waved his hand over Styke’s eyes. “Yeah, you’re there. Kresimir, you’re hard to kill. You remember what I told you a few weeks ago? I told you that you’re nothing but a killer. Looks like you weren’t even good enough at that, if what the rumors say are true.” He harrumphed. “I must be a prophet, boys, because I told him he’d be back and look at that: He’s back.”

  Styke closed his eyes. He knew the pain hadn’t even begun. He’d take months to recover, and once he did the guards would make him wish he hadn’t. It would be an endless cycle of beatings and hatred until the end of his days and he didn’t even have one good hand left to fight back with.

  The labor camp had never truly broken him, but this … this might.

  “What happened to that kid you took out with you?” Vladiar asked.

  Styke’s eyes shot open. Vladiar was right there, close enough Styke could smell the cabbage on his breath. There was a shallow smile on Vladiar’s lips, and he tapped the side of Styke’s head. “I remember her. And I remember how you broke my cousin’s leg. I’m gonna find that girl. I’ll bring her back here, and I’ll hand her over to the boys while you sit there and watch. I’ll cut the tendons on the back of your legs and laugh when you try to crawl over to help her.”

  Styke bit his tongue again, suppressing the pain. He took a few breaths and felt every little cut react to the movement of his chest. He was tapped out. He had nothing left. “Good luck,” he whispered.

  “What the pit is that supposed to mean?”

  Styke flopped his arm backward, nearly passing out from the pain of the stab wound in his shoulder. His hand might be useless, but he could still move, and he managed to wrap a forearm around Vladiar’s neck and jerk him downward against the marble slab. There was a crunch, and Vladiar gave a whimpering cry and he collapsed.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Grab him.”

  The two remaining guards leapt into action, Zach going to Vladiar’s side and Jeffron hammering a fist down into the wound on Styke’s thigh. Styke gasped and rolled toward Jeffron, coming off the slab with more momentum than he’d expected. Jeffron caught him and almost kept his feet, but Styke slammed his forehead between Jeffron’s eyes. The guard dropped like a sack of potatoes.

  Styke slumped backward, the slab creaking on its frame. His breath came short and painful, and he put all his weight on his elbow. He got his leg beneath him and managed to fling himself around the slab and onto Zach, who was just getting up from his examination of Vladiar. The two went down in a heap, and Styke ground his chin first into one eye, then the other, ignoring the battering Zach gave his chest. He managed to get Zach’s throat between the working fingers of his bad hand and squeezed until the other’s cries were nothing more than a gurgle.

  It took Styke several moments to gain his feet, but the knowledge that seconds were precious spurred him through the pain. There was nothing left of him—he was just meat on the move—and the only thought that kept him going was that he would kill every last guard in this blasted place until there wasn’t anyone left to remember that he and Celine had left together.

  Groans escaped his lips as he dragged himself up. This corner of the infirmary was a mess. Vladiar lay still, his head covered in blood, while Jeffron gave the occasional twitch and Zach gurgled quietly. Across the room, Set hid behind one of the infirmary cots. Styke swayed, caught himself on the slab with his crippled hand, and nodded at the doctor. “Stay there,” he ordered.

  Going was slow. Styke left the infirmary at a snail’s pace, leaning against a wall when he could, putting the rest of his weight on the leg that hadn’t been stabbed when he couldn’t. He wondered, from time to time, what the pit he was doing. There was no escape from Sweetwallow. He certainly wasn’t going to kill all the guards in his condition. They would find him in minutes. But those thoughts were fleeting and inconsequential. He was driven forward, leaving a trail of crimson behind him as he followed the long halls of the administration building past the guards’ mess hall and the parole cells until he came out a side door near one of the fences.

  With nothing to lean against he only made it a few steps before he fell. He caught himself on that crippled hand and lay still for several moments, listening for an alarm. The night was silent, even peaceful with the sound of crickets off in the marshes. Sweetwallow had a strict curfew, and the guards would slack off from time to time to play cards in their bunkhouse. Maybe Styke had gotten lucky. Maybe he could escape.

  The pain was so bad as to cause a delirium. He remembered a time he’d been unhorsed in the middle of battle, hitting his head badly when he fell. He remembered the mud and the sound—the absolute chaos of the fight as he tried to get back to his senses. Hooves and feet had hammered the ground around him, and someone had bashed him from behind with the butt of a musket. His armor had taken the blow.

  He couldn’t remember what had happened next, but he could hear those hoofbeats pounding in his brain as loudly as if he were back in battle.

  He squinted through the memories and focused on the cracked wooden fencing that surrounded Sweetwallow. The labor camp palisade was twenty feet tall and hardened in the sun. No breaking through and no going over the top—not in his condition.

  “Ben, why did you leave me behind?”

  Styke looked over his shoulder. Celine was behind him—or at least a vision of her—standing in the administration building doorway, legs planted to straddle the trail of blood he’d left. “I didn’t,” he managed. He forced himself up on his crippled hand, dragging himself toward the fence.

  “You left me behind, Ben.”

  “I didn’t,” he insisted again, still dragging. “I took you out of this place. It was one of the only good things I’ve ever done, and you won’t take it away from me. Ungrateful little shit.” Something twinged in his shoulder and he bit down hard on his tongue before dragging himself forward another foot. “I didn’t mean it,” he muttered. “You’ve always been a good kid. I did leave you behind, but I left you with friends. Olem will take care of you. Send you to school. He’s not a bad sort.”

  “I don’t want to be with Olem. I want to be with you.”

  Styke reached the palisade and slapped his hand against the base. It was hard, firm. Might as well be iron. “Well,” he said to the ghostly apparition of Celine. “That’s too damn bad. I’m here forever, and you’re out there.”

  “I’ll get you out.”

  Styke raised his head, looking over his shoulder. The apparition was gone, but the voice he’d just heard sounded so real. He could feel tears in his eyes, and wondered if this was what it was like to go mad. He heard a yell somewhere inside the camp, and smiled softly as the alarm went off almost instantly. They’d find him any moment, and then …

  Something warm touched his hand. It was so sudden and startling that he jerked away, gasping at the pain of the sudden movement. He peered at the base of the palisade, noticing a break in the thick wooden slats. Through the murk he thought he could see a tiny face. He blinked, cursing his eyes, then lowered his head to the cool dirt.

  Brains, he decided, could play cruel jokes on their owners.

  “Ben!”

  Styke’s head came up again. A tiny hand grasped his, tugging on his fingers.

  “Ben, wake up!”

  “Celine?”

  “You don’t look so good, Ben.”

  Son of a bitch. It wasn’t a fever playing tricks on him. “Celine, you have to get away from here. They’re searching the perimeter right now, and if you don’t get out of here they’ll find you and they’ll—”

  “Don’t worry,” Celine said, patting Styke’s hand through the gap. “I brought friends.”

  Styke let out something halfway between a gasp and a laugh. “I don’t have any friends, Celine. Get out of here.”

  “You do,” Celine insisted. “And they’re not very happy.”

  Styke heard a shout, and then a sudden crash farther do
wn the camp palisade. The shouts escalated, and then pistol shots rang out, punctuated by the blast of blunderbusses and carbines. Celine was suddenly gone, and Styke reached forward weakly, grasping for her hand.

  “He’s down here!” he heard her shout. “On the other side of the fence!”

  Styke listened, confused, to the clash of steel and the cries of the wounded. It was over in moments, and then hooves thundered toward him. He rolled onto his back, squinting at the hazy figures in the darkness. Who would possibly come for him? Was it Tampo? Was it Lady Flint?

  Figures flung themselves off their horses and Styke felt himself lifted by strong but gentle hands, his back pressed against the base of the camp palisade. Torches were thrust in his face.

  “Pit,” a man’s voice said, “he’s pale as a ghost.”

  “Lost too much blood,” another responded.

  “Pit, would you look at him? I hardly recognize him.”

  “The blood should make it easier,” someone else quipped.

  Styke couldn’t get his head around the voices—they were at once foreign and familiar, like a child’s lullaby from the distant corners of his memory—and the sudden light of the torches blinded him. He tried to pull back as someone suddenly knelt in front of him and he could make out the unmistakable, runed gloves of a Privileged sorcerer.

  Someone stood behind the sorcerer, silhouetted in the torchlight, pistol pressed against the base of the sorcerer’s head.

  “You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” the Privileged hissed.

  Behind him, the silhouette responded in a husky female voice. “We’ve been over this. I don’t give a shit. Heal him, now. Any funny business and I’ll clear your sinuses with a bullet.”

  “Look at him,” the Privileged demanded. “This could take hours, and the process might kill him.”

  “I’ve got all the time in the world,” the silhouette responded. “And you better hope it doesn’t.”

  Styke took a ragged breath. He recognized that voice. Like the others, it was as if from a distant memory—but this one had haunted his dreams for ten long years. He felt tears running down his cheeks, his hands trembling. His eyes began to adjust to the torchlight, and he began to recognize faces standing in a semicircle around him.