“What changed?” Vera asked.
Borgon shrugged. “Balarian government killed all the dragons in the area we just passed. Everything went crazy after that. Monkeys turned vicious—killed and ate everything except the cactus. Then we got hit with a drought that wouldn’t quit. Turned everything to sand and it never turned back. Been a long run of bad luck, that’s for sure. Only reason these orchards aren’t dried up and dead, too, is because of the irrigation pipes running from the heart of Burz-al-dun to here.”
“Too bad,” Vera said. She didn’t have sympathy for the Balarians. In her experience, long strings of bad luck were preceded by men making a long series of bad decisions.
The sea was close. Vera could smell the salt in the air. She had been watching the city from the bow of the ship since dawn, marking the growth of the towers with her thumb as they drew closer. Vera had seen many cities in her life, but this one was by far the largest and tallest. Himeja, the capital of Papyria, was just a cluster of stone and cedar huts in comparison.
Burz-al-dun dominated both banks of the Lorong River, but the two sides looked very different. The western buildings were made from gray stone and wood—taller than she thought possible, but otherwise not so different from the buildings of Floodhaven. The other side, however, was like nothing Vera had ever seen. The buildings were made from red and white and cream marble blocks that glinted in the sun, all of them neatly ordered and sturdy. Steam rose from countless tin chimneys. The massive towers were festooned with copper pipes and geared scaffolding that lifted platforms up and down the high levels.
“What are those for?” Vera asked, pointing at the scaffold.
“Now you see why they call Burz-al-dun the Clock,” Borgon said. “They’re for the rich bastards living in those towers—food and drink and whatever else them fat cats want goes up, and they never even leave their sofas. Fresh water comes in and out of those copper pipes, too. Quite the setup.”
Vera had heard rumors that Burz-al-dun was home to marvelous luxuries, but she’d imagined plush rooms and swarms of servants. Not a city dominated by metal and machines.
A massive domed building came into view. It was so much larger than the other buildings that it had to be the Imperial Palace. There was an enormous gear sprouting from the middle of the dome—halfway exposed and as wide as an avenue. It moved in a slow, deliberate circle.
“What is that?” Vera asked, pointing. She had never seen anything like it.
“Ah, that’s the Kor Cog. She powers the whole city. Lights, heat, water, and checkpoints are all fueled by the big bitch.” Borgon picked at a scab on his ear. “Got to think it’d cause a racket at night.”
Vera wanted to ask more questions about the Kor Cog, but was stopped as they came upon the longest bridge she had ever seen. It stretched across the river, connecting the halves of the city.
There were two levels. The bottom was dark and dirty, domi nated by foot traffic. The open-air top was filled with carriages and litters. The rich and privileged above, and the peasants down in the shadows. That, at least, was familiar.
Far more noticeable, however, was the statue in the middle of the bridge. Aeternita.
She was at least one hundred strides tall, and made entirely of steel. Her arms were outstretched, body naked, but halfway covered by her streaming hair. As they got closer, Vera could see that the locks of hair were made from a river of small clocks, gears, and carved steel bits.
Borgon squeezed the copper clock hanging around his neck as they passed beneath the bridge, but said nothing.
On the far side of the bridge, they began to pass quays and boat slips. A flock of seagulls clucked nearby, and the faint sounds of sailors and dockhands drifted across the water. The quays were crowded but orderly.
Vera sniffed and frowned. Something was out of place.
Every other port city in the realm of Terra reeked so badly you’d have thought the buildings were mortared together with shit. But this place was laced with the piney smell of burning dragon oil, wafting over the water along with the dockhands’ voices and the salty sea air. Masking the stink of thousands of crapping peasants was no small thing. Replacing it with the most valuable substance in the world was quite another.
The river widened beyond the bridge as they approached the harbor. Massive trading galleys destined for the Soul Sea mingled with riverboats and barges.
“Where do we go from here?” Vera asked Borgon. “One of those slips?” Vera pointed to the western shore where long docks poked out into the water.
“No. Ours is on the shiny side of town. It’ll be gated and covered, like one of them over there.” Borgon pointed to a tall rectangular dock with a metal roof that looked more like a miniature warehouse. “Vallen always makes sure we have our privacy. Nobody without the proper seals can even come near.”
“The seals control movement inside the city, too?” Vera asked.
“The seals control everything in Balaria. Where a man can live. What kind o’ work he does. Whether or not he can even leave the city.” Borgon ran a hand through his messy beard. “A sewage worker living in the slum of the Clock won’t ever stray more than a few blocks from the spot he was born ’cause o’ the seal checkpoints.” Borgon motioned to the western bank, where a tall metal gate rose up from between two sagging stone buildings.
“Seems like a lot of freedom to give up.”
Borgon shrugged. “Depends on how you look at it. That sewer worker might be stuck in a slum, but the slums of Burz-al-dun smell like pine and dragon oil instead of pig shit and trash, like every other city in Terra. Ain’t been no plague in decades. Might be there’s famine and crazy monkeys outside the city, but nobody in the Clock goes hungry. Plenty are willin’ to call that a fair trade.” Borgon spat into the water. “Still, making port in the ole Clock always puckers my ass a little. It ain’t natural.”
He ambled away, back to the pilot’s cabin.
Vera had always assumed the stories about Burz-al-dun were exaggerations passed down from the mouths of merchants until they became outright lies. But she’d been wrong. The stories didn’t even begin to capture the magnitude of innovation in the Balarian city.
* * *
Vera made her way to the rear of the boat. Liofa saw her coming and cut her off.
“Going to see the gimp?” he asked, smiling. He had redone the strange braids in his hair.
Vera waited for him to move. He didn’t.
“Vergun’s done things like this before,” Liofa continued. “Crippled a man and then left him alive to torture more. Once he cut off all a man’s fingers, pickled them, and sent the poor bastard to catch a marlin. Can you imagine that, fishing with just your thumbs?”
Vera didn’t say anything.
“Anyway, when the man came back empty-handed—or so to speak—Vergun fed the guy his fucking fingers. Then had him describe all the flavors. Even to me, that one seemed a little strong.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Vera asked.
“It’s a funny story.” Liofa’s mouth smiled, but his eyes didn’t. “But the thing is, that man with no fingers had a brother who came after me and the vampire for that little trick. Tried to kill us with a pitchfork. Couldn’t blame the man for his reaction. Family is family. But you and the Balarian seem to be handling that old man’s death awfully well. Makes me wonder.”
“I barely know Bershad, and the man you killed was a stranger,” Vera lied, letting her hand drift a few finger-lengths closer to the grip of Kaisha. “I’m just trying to get into the city.”
“I see. Guess you’re smarter than you look.” Liofa leaned in closer. “Because we have seven men waiting for us when we dock. Hard men. And I cut that brother’s intestines out and strangled him with them. I’ll do the same thing to you if you try anything stupid.”
Before Vera could respond, he slapped her on the shoulder and strode off in the opposite direction.
Vera went down the hatch into the lower cabins. When she was five
strides away from Bershad’s door, her nose picked up the fertile smell that had become familiar to her. It was a good thing that the others never came down to this part of the ship. A miniature rain forest belowdecks would have caught their attention.
Bershad was sitting on the floor, leaning against the far wall. He was naked except for a deerskin breechcloth and picking at the brownish-green bandage on his right hand. A lot of his wounds didn’t even need bandages anymore—the only evidence of his ruined wrists and ankles were rings of pink flesh and fresh scars. Even though Vera had watched his healing progress day by day, it was still incredible to see.
Bershad looked up at her. His eyes were different. They seemed to smolder inside of his skull.
“Are we in the city?” he asked.
Vera nodded. “Heading to some kind of covered dock.”
“Devan and Liofa are up there?”
“Yes.”
Bershad flexed and relaxed his hand. Started to unwrap the bandage, saw what was beneath, and left it alone.
“What are you thinking?” Vera asked.
“That neither of them have much longer to live.”
“Liofa said there would be seven men meeting them at the dock.”
Bershad stopped flexing his hand for a moment, then started again. “We beat worse odds with the Skojit.”
“No, that was six men. This’ll be nine, including Devan and Liofa. Those Skojit were out in the open and we had the element of surprise. And in case you forgot, you hadn’t just spent two weeks on a moldy bed regrowing dozens of broken bones.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re better than you were,” Vera said. Then she went over and pressed two fingers against Bershad’s collarbone. He hissed in pain. “But that doesn’t mean you’re ready for a fight like this.”
“I’m not letting those two bastards get away.”
“Neither am I. But if we’re that outnumbered and you’re not fully recovered, we need to be smart about this.”
“You have a suggestion?”
Vera looked around the room, a plan forming in her head. Devan and Liofa still thought Bershad was crippled and dying in the hold. They could use that.
“We’ll put your old, dirty bandages back on,” Vera said, squatting in front of Bershad so she could draw a rectangular diagram on the dusty cabin floor. “Judging from the other docks I saw on the way in, it’ll be a large room about this shape. Tall. Two or three stories to fit cargo crates. If you get down close while they’re unloading, I can get to a vantage point higher up on the ship, either bow or stern, depending on where the door outside is. You draw them all to one area that’s as far from that exit as possible. I’ll start taking them down. You deal with any stragglers.”
Bershad stared at the diagram for a moment, then stood up. Wincing again from the effort. “Get the bandages.”
32
BERSHAD
Balaria, Burz-al-dun
Vera’s plan wasn’t perfect, but it was the best chance they had. She’d already made sure that Felgor was out of sight and would stay that way. The rest was up to them.
As their boat was docking, Bershad rewrapped the half-healed parts of his body with old bandages that reeked of earth and blood until he looked more like a freshly exhumed corpse than a man. Now that he was moving around, he realized how injured he still was—every time he shifted his weight he could feel the places Vergun had broken his bones. The delicate flesh around the worst of his wounds threatened to split open at any time. He wouldn’t be able to last long in a prolonged fight.
The boat stopped moving. A few men shouted to each other as they tied it to the dock. Bershad and Vera waited until they heard a large gate closing, then they slipped out of the hold and looked around. The boat was docked in a dim, enclosed building. The harbor was completely obscured by a thick metal gate that dropped into the water, preventing any natural light from getting through. On the other side, there was a wooden gangplank leading from the boat to a stone quay about the size of a small courtyard. Devan, Liofa, and seven armed strangers were standing on the quay. One of the strangers was a fat man wearing a leather vest covered with silver rings. He was inspecting one of the opium casks. Liofa was doing the same with a squat ceramic barrel. He opened it and dipped the tip of his knife inside. Scrutinized the blade.
“What do you expect to accomplish from that?” the fat man asked, looking up from his work.
“Checking to see if it’s refined. Oil’s got a greenish tint after them engineers work on it.”
“We ever brought you dragon oil that wasn’t?”
“No. But nobody’s cheated you till the first time they cheat you.” Liofa glared at the fat man for a moment, then wiped his blade off on his shirt and resealed the barrel. “This is ready to go.”
“Not so fast,” the fat man said. “You’re missing some poppy, friend.”
Liofa frowned. “The fuck I am.”
“Count ’em, then.”
Everyone was distracted by the missing opium cask, which was the best shot they’d get.
“Ready?” Vera whispered.
Bershad nodded, then started hobbling toward the gangplank, using his sheathed sword as a cane and clutching a half-empty bottle of rice wine against his chest. Vera moved to a vantage point above the pilot’s cabin of the boat.
“Who the fuck is that?” asked the fat man. “Is the vampire selling lepers now, Liofa?”
Everyone looked at Bershad. He groaned, spilling some rice wine and drooling as he walked.
Liofa cursed. “This is all we need,” he muttered. Then louder, to Devan, “Get the gimp back in the fucking boat. How is he even walking?”
Devan turned, face darkening into a dirty grin. He put a hand on the massive broadsword on his back, but didn’t draw.
“You still alive, lizard killer?” he growled. “Figured I’d be scraping you out of that hold with a shovel.”
Bershad kept moving down the gangplank. Devan, Liofa, and the fat man were all too close to the boat for Vera to have a clear shot. The other six smugglers were watching, but not getting any closer.
Devan’s smile faded as he realized that Bershad wasn’t stopping. “Get back in the fucking boat, dead man.”
“You’re the dead man, asshole,” Bershad said, getting close and slamming his palm into Devan’s bare chest. Pain shocked up his forearm from the impact. Devan barely moved. “Now draw your fucking sword!”
That got the smugglers’ attention. The four who’d been spread out inspecting crates started moving closer to Bershad, eyes hungry with the promise of a fight. The two guarding the door put their hands on their blades, but didn’t move.
“Telling you for the last time,” Liofa said, knuckles tightening around his weapon. “Get. Back. On. The. Boat.”
“It’s all right, Liofa.” Devan drew the sword from his back and held it casually by the cross guard in one meaty hand. “This one can die same as that old man.” He smiled. “Like a cowed bitch.”
Bershad had promised to wait for Vera to make the first move with her sling. She had the better view and would know when the time was right. But now that he was within sword’s reach of the man who’d killed Rowan, his blood was rising. He couldn’t wait.
He coiled his body. Drew the blade and made a sweeping attack. Devan just barely managed to raise his sword for a clumsy parry, then fell backward on his ass.
“What the fuck are you idiots doing?” the fat man shouted. “Stop this—”
Bershad ran his sword across the man’s belly. His skin opened and an enormous layer of fat split apart, blue guts dropping all over the quay. Bershad slammed the pommel of his sword into Liofa’s face, then tried to stab him in the heart. But Liofa twisted away, ducked behind a crate, and disappeared into the building’s gloom.
Devan was on his feet again. Sword raised in a high guard. There was a gash in his ribs where Bershad had knocked the huge blade into Devan’s body from the first attack.
Two smuggle
rs rushed Bershad from the right. There was a quick whooshing sound, and one of their heads exploded in a cloud of bone shard and brain. The other smuggler fell over, holding one hand to his temple, blood pouring between his fingers. Vera’s shot must have gone through one skull and hit the other. The four remaining men—including the two by the door—sprinted toward Bershad. Vera took a shot with her sling but the stone banged harmlessly into a wood crate. She cursed from the boat.
Bershad spat out a low growl and charged Devan.
They met on the stone quay in a flurry of blows. Devan’s sword was twice the size of a normal weapon but he swung as if it weighed no more than a kitchen knife. Every time Bershad parried a strike, it felt like his wrists were going to snap apart. Devan grunted and heaved a powerful downward attack that took all Bershad’s strength to block—the skin around his collarbone tore open, sending shocks of pain across his chest.
If he kept trading blows with Devan, Bershad was a dead man. So, he snarled and bulled forward—close enough to smell Devan’s hot breath—kneed him in the balls, then head-butted him. Blood and little chips of bone sprayed out Devan’s nose and down his chest. He dropped his massive sword, dazed and vulnerable. Before Bershad could finish it, someone tackled him.
He hit the stone floor and felt the wind go out of him. Ribs crunched and cracked. Someone raked a blade across his back. Another kicked him. Bershad rolled over just in time to catch a machete coming at his face. The serrated metal sunk deep into his hand, striking bone. He howled and cursed, then pulled the smuggler down on top of him. Bershad snarled and bit into his cheek—a rush of warm blood filled his mouth. The man screamed and recoiled, drew a pickaxe from his belt, and was about to slam it through Bershad’s forehead when the back of the smuggler’s skull blew apart in a storm of pink mist.
Bershad grabbed the pickaxe and crunched it into the other man’s foot, pulling him to the ground. He ripped the pickaxe free and thumped it into the bastard’s chest three times, feeling bones snap and break. More blood sprayed across Bershad’s forearms and face.
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