The Twilight Empire (Swords and Saints Book 2)

by J A Hutson

  Next the mendicant approaches me cautiously, but I submit to his examinations without quarrel. When he finishes he looks visibly relieved, though I’m unsure whether that’s because I didn’t accost him or because I’m free of the disease.

  “They are healthy,” he says to the exarch.

  “Very good. Then let us be off.” Velius turns on his heel and begins striding towards the soaring gate. One of the guards gives me a small push to follow him.

  “The first sight of Enlightened Zim always sets a traveler’s soul to soaring,” the exarch says over his shoulder as he enters the massive shadow cast by the gate. “I would not deny even slaves the moment. You should give thanks I am not confining you again to the wagon.”

  We hurry after him into the cool darkness of the gate. Dozens of carts laden with vegetables and eggs the size of watermelons are jostling to make it past a checkpoint where a guard is examining the produce before waving the farmers on. When he sees the exarch approaching, he straightens, bringing his knuckles to his brow, then quickly moves out of the way. The milling farmers bow their heads and step back, arms clasped behind their backs.

  The exarch ignores them all, sweeping past into the city.

  And oh, the city.

  My breath catches in my throat as we pass through the gate, and the splendor of Zim unfolds before us. It is like we have entered a forest of the gods – the buildings here are round, like the houses of the trading town, but they are far larger, scraping the lightening sky with tapering roofs. They are all constructed of brightly colored bricks fitted together so well that the facades look nearly seamless. Some of these bricks are the same deep red of the walls, others are green, purple, umber, and vermilion, a riot of colors like a garden full of exotic flowers. Delicate stone bridges link many of these towers, suspended hundreds of lengths over the cobbled streets, and despite the early hour I can see figures moving on them. Others look down from balconies of wrought copper, facing the dawn.

  I glance over at Bright Eyes and see that her reaction is the same as mine – her mouth is hanging open slightly as she stares up in wonder at the gleaming towers.

  “By the green maw,” she breathes softly. “How can men build such things?”

  The exarch’s hearing must be excellent, as he turns back to her with a smug smile. “Zim is the Twilight Empire, the culmination of man’s learning and glory. We are the last and the greatest.”

  “That’s a bit fatalistic,” I say, and the exarch’s face twists into what I think is contempt.

  “The Prophet has seen the darkness gathering. We must cherish this glory, because it is fleeting.”

  “The Prophet?”

  He shakes his head, apparently at my ignorance. “The messenger of the vanished gods. Two hundred years ago he was sent to shepherd us into the eternal night. We can only hope that when the end comes it is a long and glorious decay, rather than sudden fire and ruin.”

  The wide avenues are mostly empty at this early hour, and the few folk out and about are dressed in simple gray and brown shifts. I suspect they are servants or slaves. There are still a few tall, dark-skinned Zimani on the streets, most of them wearing resplendent robes decorated with colorful designs. Most everyone we pass acknowledges the exarch, the servants bowing low, the other Zimani merely inclining their heads.

  The exarch strides purposefully down the streets, staying to the main thoroughfares, and we follow, flanked by the guards in their flashing bronze armor. After only a short while we arrive at an imposing cluster of squat gray towers bound together by a high wall bristling with spikes. Guards usher us inside, into a wide courtyard where a handful of men and women are drilling with practice swords. A scowling, thick-set man who looks cut from ebony stomps up to us and knuckles his brow in the direction of the exarch.

  “Morning, High One,” he grates. His voice is iron scraped against rock.

  “Cassus,” replies the exarch, slipping his hands inside his long sleeves. “I come bringing recruits for the sewer detail.”

  The craggy man wrinkles his nose as he examines us. “These two? A pretty boy and a kvah are going to be muckers?”

  “They can fight – I saw it myself,” Velius assures him, and then reaches up to unclasp the spheres from around his necklace. They clink together and I feel a little shiver from the circlet around my ankle as he drops the spheres into the overseer’s massive hand. Then he turns to us.

  “And here is where I leave you. Cassus is now your father, your mother, and your god. Your lives are quite literally in his hand.” Without another word he whirls on his heel and begins striding back towards the gate.

  I move to follow him, but Cassus slides in front of me. I try to get around him and the stocky man grabs me roughly by my shirt and tosses me backwards. His strength surprises me, and I barely catch myself before I go sprawling.

  “Where are you going, butterfly?” he growls at me.

  I gesture at the exarch’s retreating back. “He’s just leaving?”

  “And why do you think an exarch of the third rank would stay in these parts? He’s got more important things to do than play nursemaid to you two. That’s my burden, unfortunately.”

  We glare at each other, and I can see in his eyes that he’s hoping I try something rebellious. I’m tempted, but the pressure of the circlet around my ankle is a constant reminder of how easy it would be to cripple me. Still, I edge a bit closer, until we’re only a few hand-spans apart. The clatter of the practice swords has stopped, and I can sense that the sparring men and women are watching.

  The tension between us is swelling, and I’m convinced I’ll have to defend myself soon. Then, with disconcerting suddenness, the old Zimani’s scowl melts away and he claps me hard on the shoulder, staggering me.

  “Ha! You’ve got some hardness in you, salah.”

  Surprised, I step back.

  Cassus clears his throat loudly and spits. “That’s good. It’ll serve you well down below. The depths chew up and swallow the soft ones.”

  “I thought this was the Department of Public Works?” I ask, shaking my head in bafflement as Cassus motions towards those watching.

  “Manticores, over here! Basilisk and Chimera, keep at it!” the Zimani bellows, and then he turns to answer me. “It is, salah.”

  A man and a woman jog up to us, lathered in sweat and still holding their practice swords. Both are garbed in dark-gray uniforms, a black patch emblazoned with a red trident in the center of their chests.

  “Manticores present,” the man drawls. His skin is dusky, and he has a close-cropped black beard threaded with silver. One of his eyes is milky, an old scar running through it, but he’s still rakishly handsome. The squat woman is a Zimani, her head shaven. She eyes me critically.

  “Right,” continues Cassus. “Shalloch, Vesivia, these are the new members of Manticore squad. Fresh muckers.”

  “A kvah?” the man asks dubiously. “Are you sure, Sergeant?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” yells Cassus, spittle flying. “Did you or did you not see the exarch himself deliver them this morning while you two were swanning around like a couple of lovestruck debutantes? Are you questioning the judgment of the bureaucracy?”

  Shalloch absorbs the Zimani’s sudden anger with stoic detachment. It seems he’s accustomed to it. Then he shrugs and holds out his hand towards Bright Eyes. “Well met. I am Shalloch. Once of the Isles, now of Zim.”

  I can see the shock in the kvah’s face as she stares at the proffered hand. Then, slowly, she extends her own. “I am Bright Eyes.”

  Without hesitation, he grips her arm and pumps it vigorously. After, he turns to me and inclines his head. “Well met, stranger. Seems you should be the one called Bright Eyes, eh?”

  “I’m Talin,” I reply as the bald Zimani woman steps forward.

  “And I am Vesivia,” she says softly. “Welcome to the Manticore.”

  “Manticore?”

  “Your squad,” Cassus says. “You’ll eat together, sl
eep together, shit together. And most importantly, you’ll go into the sewers together. Muckers are brothers and sisters. Best you learn to trust each other, as your lives will depend on how you work as a team.”

  “Just how dangerous is the Department of Public Works?” I ask in exasperation. “We’re supposed to keep the water flowing?”

  Cassus narrows his eyes at me. “Shalloch, what happened to the previous members of Manticore squad?”

  “Which ones?”

  “The most recent.”

  “Killed when clearing out an infestation of vrow.”

  “And the ones before that?”

  “Stepped in a tarshin’s trap.”

  “And the ones before that?”

  Shalloch brow furrows. “Eaten by a cube? No, wait, that was the ugly pair. What did happen to them? The gel-akon cousins from up north?”

  “Dissolved,” Vesivia interjects quietly.

  “Ah, yes,” Shalloch says, nodding. “By the nasty gunk that spewed out of the idol’s mouth.”

  I blink, surprised. “Idol?”

  “Yes, in one of the forgotten temples. They’re all over down there. No place better to worship a dark god than down in the undercity, away from prying eyes. We get word that a cult has started conducting blasphemous rites, it’s up to us to clear them out.”

  I jump as Cassus claps me on the shoulder again. “Welcome to the Department of Public Works, mucker.”

  7

  “And that’s why the whores of Genivas don’t have crabs!”

  Shalloch pounds his palm on the table and looks around, as if expecting us to burst out laughing. His face falls when the punchline fades into an awkward silence.

  “Wait,” pipes up Mok, the blue-furred qayth. “Is it because of the crab fishermen?”

  “Of course it’s because of the crab fishermen,” grumbles Shalloch, taking another swig of his watery ale. “That’s why I mentioned them in the set-up to the joke.”

  “Oh!” the qayth exclaims, his long ears shivering. “This was a joke! I thought you were just telling us something you’d learned when you were a pirate.”

  Shalloch shakes his head, stabbing at a gray chunk of meat on his plate. “None of you have a sense of humor,” he says, then jabs at Mok with his fork and what’s stuck on the end of it, some sort of tentacle. “And I wasn’t a pirate. I was a swashbuckler.”

  Mok stares back innocently. “What’s the difference?”

  Shalloch opens his mouth, but it’s Vesivia who answers first.

  “A lack of self-awareness.”

  The table dissolves into laughter. For a moment Shalloch looks annoyed, and then he grins sheepishly and leans over to kiss Vesivia on the cheek.

  “I’ll have you know, I was going to say ‘an attention to personal hygiene.’”

  Vesivia raises her eyebrows. “Well, in that case, I’ll certainly never fuck a true pirate. You’re just barely acceptable.”

  Everyone laughs again. Workers from the other tables in the large eating hall glance over, curious about what’s so entertaining. I lean back against the wall, shaking my head. Only a few days in the sewer division of the Department of Public Works and I can already feel bonds being forged. The comradery of the gallows, I suppose, as from everything I’ve been told the mortality rate for those of us who brave Zim’s underbelly is staggering.

  Shalloch and Vesivia have survived for over two years, which makes them old hands. Just a few more months and they’ll be allowed to walk out of here unfettered. Shalloch is in the last few months of a prison sentence that was handed down after he was captured raiding a disguised Zimani navy ship in the eastern sea. By volunteering for this dangerous duty, he had his time in the gaol commuted. And Vesivia is here of her own free will – she initially joined the Manticore on some sort of religious mission, but after falling in love with Shalloch she decided to help keep him alive until his punishment was finished. She’s a skilled warrior – my side still tingles where she rapped it earlier today while training.

  “Talin.”

  Shalloch is leaning close to me, and from this distance I might quibble with his claim about his personal cleanliness.

  “Do you want to invite your friend over?” He jerks his head in the direction of Bright Eyes, who is hunched by herself at the end of a long trestle table.

  “She’s not really my friend,” I reply, but even as this passes my lips, I hear the lie. She might be proud and prickly, but she has earned at least a bit of my affection.

  Shalloch runs his fingers through his greasy hair. “Well, here’s the thing. She’s in Manticore, and if you want to survive longer than a month in this place then we all need to trust each other. I don’t want to go down into the depths knowing nothing about her except that she sulks a lot. And the way she hangs back during the day, refusing to train . . . Cassus is a decent enough bloke, but eventually she’ll have to fight or she’ll get shipped off somewhere even worse. And there are worse places than this, believe me.”

  I set down my fork. That does make sense. Shalloch sees agreement in my face and gives me a smile that flashes gold.

  “There’s a good fellow. I’ve actually sailed with a few kvah in my time – hard skin, but good mates in a fight. Just don’t let them start drinking. Someone usually loses a limb.”

  I push away from the table and wend my way through the crowded hall to where Bright Eyes is eating. She’s shoveling down food mechanically, not paying any attention to anyone else.

  “Hey,” I say, sliding onto the bench across from her. She doesn’t look up.

  “You should come sit with us. Shalloch and Vesivia are good people.”

  Bright Eyes slurps from her ale, and as she sets down her cup, I put my hand on her wrist. She tenses, and for a moment I’m worried that she’s going to throw the cup in my face.

  “We will have to fight together,” I say gently.

  For a moment she’s absolutely still, and then something spasms in her face. “Let go of me, pinkling,” she says in a cold voice.

  The kvah sits there, staring at the congealing gray mess on the plate in front of her. She’s quiet for so long that I consider leaving her alone, but then she starts to speak.

  “They want us to fight together, like we are family,” she says. “But you are not my family. My mate and children are bones now, bleaching in the sun. Murdered by the men who put this on me.” She gestures angrily at the circlet around her ankle. “Now they bring me here and want me to fight? They want me to join a new family, spill blood for them? I see my Ghela twitching with an arrow in her neck every time I close my eyes.”

  She falls quiet again after this outburst, but I can see she’s struggling to control her breathing. What can I say to this? They murdered her children.

  I steel myself, ready to get a fist in the face for what I’m about to say.

  “I lost the only ones I care about as well,” I say softly. “I’m not sure if they’re dead or alive, but I know I’ll likely never see them again. But I can tell you this” – and now my voice hardens, though I’m barely whispering – “I will be free again. I will get out of this circlet, and if you fight with me now, I promise I will help you get revenge.”

  Bright Eyes doesn’t look at me, continuing to stare at her food. More long moments pass, and I can’t tell from her face what she’s thinking. Then she speaks, also in a whisper, but there’s a jagged edge that sends a shiver up my spine.

  “Revenge. That is something worth living for.”

  Daily life in the Department of Public Works is what I imagine elite soldiers must endure in the armies of the emperor. We wake early in our large cell, which has been quartered so that each of the four squads inside – sixteen men and women in total – have their own space to sleep and live. Some of us are slaves, others are free but willing to brave the dangers below for money. Others, like Vesivia, are volunteering due to some obligation to their faith. While we’re here, though, we’re all treated like prisoners, locked inside for the
night and only let out when our sleeping spaces are spotless.

  When inspection is finished, we have breakfast together in the great eating hall with all the other squads. There must be a hundred men and women all told, along with a scattering of other races. Bright Eyes is the only kvah that I’ve seen, but there’s also the qayth, Mok, who is part of Chimera squad and the only other non-human in our cell. After, we are sent out for morning conditioning, which involves running while wearing armor, climbing over walls, squirming through narrow spaces. These must be meant to prepare us for what waits beneath the city, and my conception of what the ‘sewers’ must be like undergoes a significant evolution. I’d imagined small, narrow tunnels half-filled with the sludge of the city above, but now I’m expecting a trap-filled obstacle course.

  Then a brief rest, and lunch, and we are dispatched to the practice fields to train. Over the first few days of this routine I’ve been impressed with the skill of Shalloch and Vesivia. Both are dangerous with a blade – Shalloch wields a curving scimitar with a large handguard that he calls a cutlass, and Vesivia favors two thin-bladed short swords. After some initial sparring, we practice fighting together, side by side and back to back. At first I was confused as to why we’d prepare to go up against groups of humanoid warriors, but then Shalloch revealed that there’s a surprising amount of thieves, outcasts, and dark cultists running around in the sewers.

  For the first few days we train without Bright Eyes. Then, on the third morning, we arrive at the courtyard to find her waiting.

  “Can she even lift that thing?” Shalloch murmurs as we approach where Bright Eyes is crouched beside a bucket, dusting her hands with chalk. A battle-ax of black iron lies beside her on the tiles, its double blades nicked and dented. She rises when she hears our footsteps, gripping the long haft and hefting the great ax as if it weighs nothing.

  “This is the only weapon in the armory that is worthy of a kvah.”