Of Kings and Killers

by Will Wight

  Copyright © 2020 Hidden Gnome Publishing

  Book and Cover design by Patrick Foster Design

  Cover painting by Micah Epstein

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  WillWight.com

  To all my fans who asked me for these books so long ago: sorry to keep you waiting!

  I hope this long-overdue ending is everything you hoped for.

  Prologue

  present day

  In the dim, predawn light of the Capital streets, Karson clutched a musket to his chest and prepared to save the world.

  Even at this time of day, the roads would normally be cluttered with the last of the city’s nightlife, but the street was bare. Karson waited behind a trash collection bin, his fellows in similar positions all over the nearby buildings.

  There were twenty-one of them. Twenty-one souls offered up to the future of the Empire. They would not walk away from this, but if the Unknown God was kind, neither would the false Emperor.

  He stole them from you, a voice whispered from deep inside Karson’s thoughts. It’s his fault they’re dead.

  The pain seared through him. Five years ago, when Karson was little more than a child, his parents and older sister had been killed in the riots following the Emperor’s death. The wound had never closed. It had only festered.

  And here the Imperialists were trying to raise an imitation, a fake Emperor, to pretend everything was all right. His eyes flicked up to the black crack in the sky, the badge that unified every one of the twenty-one patriots who prepared to die here this morning.

  The false Emperor would deliver them all to the Great Elders.

  Unless Karson stopped him.

  The first wave of Imperial Guards marched down the street in their uniforms of black and red. These were the Guards with enhanced senses, and it seemed they had gotten more hideous since the true Emperor’s death. One Elder-looking woman paced ahead with her bat ears flicking from side to side, and another hideous monstrosity snuffled along in her wake, bent down so his snout could press close to the ground.

  They had prepared for both of these. A fellow patriot had led the robbery of an alchemical workshop the week before. Using those materials, they had constructed devices to confuse both hearing and smell.

  An open jar to Karson’s left bubbled and hissed strangely; the sounds seemed to dip in and out of audibility, as though they made noises that his human ears couldn’t pick up. They had four such devices scattered around, and the bat-eared woman pressed a hand to her head but continued walking.

  Each of the patriots had been sprayed down with a scent-masking perfume that smelled like clean, fresh wind and dirt. The man with the snout sniffed here and there but showed no alarm.

  In a more populated place or time, the false Emperor’s Guard would have been larger or more thorough. But this was supposed to be a secret trip, a quick one, through an all-but-abandoned neighborhood at a silent time of day. If one of Karson’s fellows hadn’t been a member of the Imperial Guard herself, they would never have caught the Liar King so unprepared.

  Armored horses trotted around the corner, carrying a plain carriage, and Karson’s rage pounded in his ears along with his heartbeat. This was him. He felt a surge of contempt for the man. What was the point of disguising the carriage if you traveled with half a dozen more Imperial Guard along the sides, each dashing as fast as the horses?

  The voice stirred up his rage, and the shadows of the alley seemed to deepen as it spoke. He doesn’t deserve to wear the crown.

  In some of Karson’s daydreams, he and the other patriots captured the fake Emperor alive. Then they visited on him all the torments that they and their loved ones had suffered since the true Emperor had been taken from them.

  He clutched his hate tighter than his musket. He had to put a stop to those dreams, to relinquish any hope of walking away alive. They wouldn’t win if they didn’t have the will to die.

  But Karson was privileged enough to die last. He would get to see the corpse of the puppet-king.

  The first four patriots popped out from nearby rooftops, throwing off the blankets or boxes meant to camouflage them from surveillance by Imperial Guards on winged Kameira. Two of them fired muskets while the others hurled waxed-paper globes with burning fuses.

  One of the horses fell to the gunfire, its knees buckling, but the second one reared up and screamed, pulling against its harness.

  That was when the fuses ran down and the bombs went off.

  Karson ducked behind the corner to avoid the noise and the debris, but they didn’t sound terribly impressive. Just sudden, muffled thumps followed by the shouts of the Guards.

  When he peeked out again, the carriage leaned to one side, its wheels shattered. Smoke and dust rose in clouds, and both horses and the coachman were dead.

  This wasn’t Karson’s moment yet, but it was the most crucial of the operation. Because now the Imperial Guard were enraged.

  None of them had died. A Guard with hooked, clawed hands scaled the side of a building faster than Karson would have dreamed possible, tearing one gunman apart and tossing the other screaming over the side. A woman with organic plates bulging under her uniform protected another Guard whose eyes bulged from his skull. That one leveled a musket and took out a patriot with a resonant crack.

  Another team, half a dozen men and women who put the good of the Empire ahead of their own lives, dashed out into the streets. They leveled weapons and shouted as loudly as they could.

  Karson stared at them, determined to witness their deaths. Their commitment would temper his own.

  They matched the Guards in number, but this team was called the Bait Team. They had the hardest job, for theirs was simply to die.

  When the door to the carriage opened and a woman in polished black-and-red armor stepped out, Karson knew their bait had been taken.

  General Teach had served the true Emperor, and not one of Karson’s patriots could fully explain why she had transferred her loyalty to a lesser copy. Some believed that the false Emperor had blackmailed her, others that she had been in thrall to the Elders all along, and the true Emperor had merely held her leash.

  Personally, Karson believed she was just simple in the head, more animal than human, and she hunted like a dog wherever her master pointed. But dogs could be dangerous.

  Icy blue eyes stared out from her helmet, and one of her gauntleted hands had already wrapped around the sword-hilt protruding from her shoulder.

  Before a single one of the Bait Team fired a shot, Teach bared an inch of her blade.

  A wave of darkness thundered down the street with a sound that Karson heard in his very soul. Flowers in windowsills died, dirt flew to the sides, and cobbles cracked.

  All six of the Bait Team fell over. Simply dead.

  The Imperial Guard who had been in the path groaned and braced themselves against the ground or nearby walls, looking sick, but none of them died or showed any injury. Teach raised her fist in a sign.

  But her enemies had signaled each other too.

  Ten of Karson’s companions burst from hiding, all around the streets. They surrounded Teach and her Guards, and the sound of gunfire was suddenly overwhelming.

  General Teach couldn’t unleash Tyrfang, her legendary sword, unless she wanted to kill all her guards and her precious false Emperor at the same time. They had her pinned down. She could only murder them one at a time, which she did with clockwork efficiency, sending out lashes of darkness without moving from the carriage door.


  All of the patriots had exposed themselves against her except one.

  Finally, it was Karson’s turn.

  For all the blood he’s spilled, the voice of his hatred whispered, you deserve to spill his.

  He ran out, keeping low, holding his musket under one arm as he pulled out a pair of vials from his pocket. It was only a few paces to the carriage, but he breathed harder than he ever had in his life, dashing past Imperial Guards that were all occupied with their own opponents.

  He needed only a second, hurling the pair of vials beneath the carriage. The glass shattered, spilling a pair of liquids on the street.

  The instant the fluids touched, they reacted. A blaze shot up, consuming the carriage in a blink.

  This was the most powerful incendiary that they could create, bound by their limited alchemical knowledge and the requirement that it stay stable until used. The Guards shouted, turning to Karson, but he had already raised his musket.

  The plan had gone even better than Karson had expected. The door was opening, and Teach covered the other door, which meant the false Emperor was emerging without her protection. If he had come out the other side, Karson wouldn’t have the privilege of killing the man himself.

  He raised his musket, the gun shivering with his excitement. The Guards would be too late.

  The second a figure began to emerge, Karson squeezed the trigger.

  The musket-ball bounced off Calder Marten’s helmet.

  He wore a suit of pure white armor that covered him from head to toe, his helmet covering his face entirely. Karson couldn’t see an inch of the man’s skin, only the dark that stretched between white plates. Even the visor, where the eyes or bits of the face would usually be visible, was entirely covered by what looked like darkened glass. He was a walking, inhuman statue clad in metal.

  The musket-ball had done nothing.

  Trembling with rage, Karson pulled a sword from his belt. He had practiced three hours a day for the last four years, trained by his fellows, channeling rage into his blade. It was as invested for this moment as he could make it, and he was as prepared as he could be.

  The false Emperor signaled the Imperial Guard back, drawing his own sword. It was mottled orange-and-black, as though it had been formed from live coals, but Karson’s blade was made for this exact moment.

  You have him, the voice whispered.

  With a single stroke, Calder Marten sliced Karson’s sword in half.

  Astonishment and despair tried to weigh down Karson’s anger, but his rage won out. He tossed himself at Marten, clawing at the armor, trying to pry it away.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Marten ordered, his voice echoing hollow in the helmet.

  The Liar King marched on, dragging Karson with him. He seemed to be trying to avoid stabbing Karson, keeping his sword low, but he walked across the street. He peered into the alley, looking to one side and then the other. After a moment, he focused on the spot where Karson had been hiding a moment before.

  With his fingertips, Karson pried at the man’s helmet. It was lifting up, he felt. Soon he would be able to pry the helmet off, to expose Calder Marten’s head to the guns of his dying compatriots…

  Marten drove his orange-spotted blade into the cobblestones.

  The shadow on the street writhed like a pierced snake. Darkness spewed into the air like blood, and the shade hissed and screamed, sounds echoing in Karson’s mind in a voice that sounded like his own.

  He lost his grip, falling to the floor, that scream all he could hear.

  The heart of the shadow burned red where it was pierced by Marten’s sword, and in an instant, the darkness curled up and burned away like a dry leaf in flame. Suddenly, there was a hollow emptiness inside Karson, like a piece of his mind had gone missing.

  The inhuman armored figure of the false Emperor knelt, and Marten raised his own visor. A young face, little older than Karson himself, looked down kindly. He didn’t look as corrupt as Karson had pictured him—he was pale-skinned, but he had gotten plenty of sun, and he wore the beginnings of a short, red beard.

  “A spawn of Urg’naut,” Calder Marten explained. “It burrowed itself into your thoughts. This wasn’t you.”

  Karson spat in his face. “Death to the false Emperor!”

  He clawed for Marten’s eyes.

  Marten stood, easily avoiding his fingernails. He thumbed the spit from his cheek. “General,” he said loudly.

  Teach appeared at his side, staring death into Karson’s eyes. Looking at her this close, it was hard to believe her just an animal. “Yes sir?”

  “Have the survivors taken to the nearest prison.”

  One of the nearby Guards spoke up. “Candle Bay Imperial Prison has just reopened.”

  Marten’s face contorted. Though Karson didn’t understand the source of the false Emperor’s pain, he felt a savage glee at seeing it.

  “…Candle Bay Imperial Prison it is,” Calder Marten said, sliding down his visor once again.

  Karson screamed at him as he was taken away, swearing vengeance, waiting for the voice of his hatred to reignite his rage.

  He heard only the groans of the dying.

  Chapter One

  He Who Sees has spoken.

  The Rebel will blind He Who Sees. This is seen, so it must be.

  The Killer will spill the blood of the Rebel. This is seen, so it must be.

  The King will rise from the ashes of the Killer. This is seen, so it must be.

  What is seen must come to pass before the eye of the future is blinded.

  Praise be to He Who Sees.

  —from a fragment of pottery recovered by the Blackwatch from an Elder cult known as the Thousand Eyes

  (fragment has not been successfully dated)

  present day

  The coronation of the Imperial Steward was a more lavish celebration than Calder had ever seen. The population of the Capital surged with people from hundreds of miles around, all of them packed into the Emperor’s Hall of Address, a specially constructed auditorium used only on those rare occasions when the Emperor wanted to speak to the entire nation.

  The Guild of Witnesses would be in attendance, keeping and distributing records of this historic occurrence: the official appointment of an Imperial heir. The sky was filled with Imperial Guards, some capable of flight themselves while others used flying Kameira or some of those unreliable flying devices that the Magister’s Guild tested every few years.

  Though Calder had been named by the Imperialist Guilds as the Steward weeks before, they had never held a public ceremony. Now that the Independents were weakened and largely quiet, the loyal Guild Heads had declared now to be the perfect time to present Calder to the public.

  He only wished he could see it himself.

  He stood at the highest window of an office building halfway across the city, looking out the window with a spyglass, catching irregular glimpses of his own coronation. He could only see the Emperor’s stage when his body double stood at a certain place, so he watched his own behavior in brief snatches.

  “I could have at least attended,” he said aloud.

  “Now they can’t blow you up,” Bliss responded. The Head of the Blackwatch lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling with the same intensity he used to watch the coronation.

  Her hair lay beneath her in a pale puddle, her black coat still neatly buttoned up. “And Ach’magut’s Inquisitors can’t dissect you,” Bliss continued. “I’m sure there are enough remaining to swarm over the walls and pull you to pieces. The alchemists can’t get you with their gas. Did you know they have a solution that will turn you inside out? It’s expensive and impossible to make in large batches, but I’m sure a single thrown canister is possible for the Head of the Alchemist’s Guild to produce. And of course there are the Consultant assassins—”

  “I understand it, Bliss, but I don’t have to like it.”

  “If you would like to interrupt me, please submit the proper paperwork to my assist
ant and I will have her consider your request. I was saying that if you were in that crowd, you would have to worry about Consultant assassins slitting your throat. But you’re with me, so you don’t.”

  She was looking at him now with her pale silvery eyes, and he looked away from the spyglass to consider her.

  Together, they waited in a moment of silence before he decided to ask, “Are you finished?”

  She considered. “For the moment, I am done.”

  “Good.” He returned to looking out the window, where his body double received what they were calling the Steward’s crown: a silver circlet to contrast with the gold circlet that the original Emperor had always worn.

  The decoy held a replica, while Calder held the real one in a case in his coat. Its Intent was only a passing breeze next to the hurricane within the real crown, but it would have been in bad taste had he worn the same crown as the previous Emperor.

  Also, the sheer weight of Intent inside the golden crown would have been too distracting if he had to wear it all the time. It was better to wear a normal ornament.

  “He smiles too much,” Calder muttered.

  “You smile often. Especially when you are trying to reassure others, which does not normally make them reassured. In fact, I think they might feel better if you did not smile.” She sat up, cupping her chin in one hand. “One might say that your smile does not fulfill the purpose of a normal smile. Is that common?”

  Bliss pulled a black notebook from her coat and started making notes. He had seen her take notes on Elder anatomy in the same book.

  Over the years, he had grown to like Bliss, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable being in a room alone with her for an extended period of time. At any point, she might decide that he would benefit from some bizarre and disturbing hallucinations.

  He lowered the spyglass, collapsing it and slipping it into his coat. “When are the others due to arrive?”