Blood of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  Orz glared the group back to the other side of the courtyard and then walked, unhurriedly, around the Mad Lancers. “It’s time to go,” he told them quietly, a note of urgency in his tone. They were soon on the road and, once they’d gone around a bend and were safely out of the sight of the inn, were riding double-time at Orz’s suggestion.

  “What happened back there?” Orz demanded, pulling Styke up to the front of the column.

  Styke found himself gripping his knife again. He let go. “They took an interest in Jackal.”

  “They don’t see a lot of Palo here. Kressians are rare, but everyone has seen a slave and knows better than to fool with them. Palo, though?” Orz let out a litany of words that Styke had not learned. “Those recruits are nothing more than goddamn children,” he finally finished. “We’ve sent so many soldiers overseas that they’ve lowered the recruiting age to sixteen. It’s become a point of pride among the Households to put their less useful members into the infantry to fill out the ranks, no matter how unqualified or privileged.”

  Styke hadn’t been that far off with his guess, then. “How do you know all this?”

  “Because I’ve been questioning every innkeeper we pass for the last couple of days. I haven’t been a free man in Dynize for years. I need information. That’s why I was taking so long to get supplies.”

  “Will this be a problem?”

  “Only if they follow us,” Orz said, glancing over his shoulder.

  “They backed off in a hurry when they saw you.”

  “And a good thing, too. A blind man could have seen the violence in you.”

  “I was restraining myself,” Styke protested.

  “Like a dog at the end of a chain.” Orz spat angrily. “Slaves don’t have such violence in them, Styke. Even the Household guards know their place. They don’t stand up to Dynize.”

  “What good is a guard who isn’t allowed to fight?”

  Orz swore again. “It’s complicated! If I had been standing there and ordered you to kill them, it would have been acceptable. But not on your own.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “That’s the way things are done!”

  Styke bit down on his tongue, trying hard not to argue. This wasn’t his land. He couldn’t be himself if he wanted them to get through this alive. “I won’t allow them to attack one of my men.”

  “Even to save the rest?”

  “No.”

  Orz inhaled sharply, studying Styke’s face. His calm seemed to return to him in the span of a few short breaths and he shook his head. “You are a wonder, Ben Styke.”

  “I’m an officer. A shitty one, most of the time. But I’ve always protected my men from the injustice of tyrants. It’s one of my few good qualities, and I’ve reached the age that I’m just not going to let that go.” The words flowed without Styke even thinking about them, and he was a little surprised at himself. It was something he’d always known he felt strongly about, but the logical part of his brain told him that he should have been more flexible. He should have let Jackal take a beating for the rest of them.

  But he’d never let it go when lives and wars were at stake in Fatrasta. Why here?

  “All right,” Orz finally said. “Let’s just keep well ahead of those soldiers. We reach the city ahead of them, then we disappear. They might gossip at some point, but as long as we move quickly, it shouldn’t be a problem.” He did not sound like he believed it.

  “Is it so rare for slaves to stand up for themselves?”

  “Yes,” Orz answered without hesitation.

  “Why?”

  “Because they are conditioned. Before they reach any level of station within a Household, they are broken and remolded. If they cannot be broken, they are killed.” Styke bit his tongue to hold back a retort. The anger was still there, festering. He twirled his ring to keep himself from checking his carbine.

  “What do you think happens to dragonmen?” Orz asked, shooting him a look. “Dragonmen, bone-eyes, and Privileged are all tools of the state. But the truth is, everyone in Dynize belongs to someone else. Even the heads of the Households belong to the emperor. Foreign slaves are lower than Household grunts. It makes them a target.”

  “You could have mentioned that before.”

  “You’re with a dragonman and a bone-eye. The chances of you actually being a target were not very high.”

  Styke ground his teeth. He suddenly felt very tired, and he wondered if Ka-poel’s sorcery had been giving him energy that he did not have. It seemed likely. He was tired and hurting, and he definitely did not want to ride another ten hours before they next slept. “All right. We ride late tonight. I don’t want to meet those soldiers again. We’ll stay ahead of any questions.”

  CHAPTER 12

  To their credit, Meln-Dun’s men had set up a fairly thorough command center for their search of Greenfire Depths. It was located in one of the offices above the warehouse. Two walls were covered in police sketches of known associates of Mama Palo, as well as long descriptions of anyone whose sketches they hadn’t managed to acquire. A third wall allowed light in through big, leaded windows with broken panes. The final had a massive map of Greenfire Depths scrawled with notes and marked with large red X’s.

  Michel was mostly interested in that map, but the moment he entered, he took a few seconds to examine the motley group of searchers. They included two women and six men, in addition to himself, Ichtracia, and Dahre. All were Palo, of course, though he could tell from the variety of dress that they came from—or attempted to mark themselves from—all walks of life. Only two wore the traditional brown cotton laborers’ suits found most commonly among city Palo. Both women wore buckskins. Another dressed like a Brudanian merchant with a tricorn hat and a finely made blue cotton jacket.

  Dahre himself sat in a chair pushed back on two legs, his feet up on the corner of a ratty old sofa, a pewter mug of coffee in one hand. He looked like a tired old police captain about to give the morning briefing to his sergeants, and the very sight of him made Michel wistful for Captain Blasdell. He wondered what had happened to her, and hoped she’d gotten out of the city ahead of the Dynize purges.

  Dahre touched his forehead in greeting. “Everyone, this is Tellurin and Avenya. They’re thief-takers from up in Brannon Bay, and they’ll be helping us with the search.” He went around and introduced the searchers. Michel cast the names to memory but only took particular note of two of them: an older man with a harelip, who glared at them at the mention of “thief-takers,” and one of the pair in buckskins—a young woman who smirked at Ichtracia, then rolled her eyes openly at Michel.

  The rest of the group seemed pleased to get additional help. Those two, however, could be trouble.

  “This is a decent setup you have here,” Michel said, heading immediately to the map of Greenfire Depths. “I’m guessing one of you has police experience?”

  The glare on the old man’s face softened slightly. “Aye, that was me. Twenty-five years with the Palo Irregular Division here in the Depths.”

  “Couhila, is it?” Michel asked.

  “That’s me.”

  “Very well done.”

  The glare softened a little more and the old man gave Michel an appreciative nod. Police generally didn’t like thief-takers, seeing them as little more than localized bounty hunters, but few people would argue that an experienced thief-taker was often the best option for tracking down someone in hiding. Michel’s take-charge tone was calculated to take advantage of that reputation.

  Dahre pointed to the young woman who’d rolled her eyes at Michel. “Devin-Mezi here helped the Dynize back when they did a big search of the catacombs for that Blackhat bomber. She was with the Household in control of the search, and offered a lot of good suggestions.”

  Michel tried not to bristle. Devin-Mezi would definitely have to be watched. If she had been helping out in the Yaret Household, there was a good chance she had seen his face on more than one occasion. “Good.” He nodded
. “All this is very good.” He pointed at the X’s. “Are these the spots you’ve already checked?”

  A round of nods answered him. It was, he could tell at a glance, the one big flaw in their organization of the search. They were hitting random spots—probably by virtue of tip-offs and false leads. There was no method to the madness, and Michel said as much. “Just hitting the spots where we have intelligence isn’t going to find us a Palo freedom fighter. No, this Mama Palo… she’s probably mobile, able to double back and change hiding spots at will. If she’s at all smart, she has a portable map that looks just like this and that tells her wherever you’ve been raiding.”

  “How will she know where we’re going to hit next?” Devin-Mezi asked, her lip curled.

  Michel looked between Devin-Mezi and Couhila. Those were the two he was worried about, and he needed to make an enemy of one and a friend of the other. His compliments already seemed to have worked on Couhila. “Because she’s clearly not an idiot,” he snapped back. “Freedom fighters don’t last long if they can’t keep ahead of the local magistrates. She’s probably got as many eyes and ears as you spread throughout the Depths.” He knew for a fact that she did, and that she was smart. Ka-poel would have left her most capable agent in charge.

  “So what do we do about it?” Couhila asked.

  Michel nodded respectfully. “These are great tools,” he said, gesturing around the room. “But we need to use them smarter. Brannon Bay doesn’t have a rat’s nest like Greenfire Depths, but it does have slums. The only way to flush someone out is by working methodically.” To emphasize his point, he punched a finger at a landmark in the southeastern corner of the Depths and then punched another spot, then another, working inward from the Rim. “We crack down on anyone who knows them. We spread around money and threats, leaving a network of informants behind us everywhere we go.”

  Dahre lifted his pewter mug, sipped from it, then spoke for the first time since making introductions. “That is, uh, very ambitious.”

  Michel shrugged it off. “I worked for some old-hand thief-takers and their very rich clients up in Brannon Bay. You said money was no object, so—”

  “Within reason,” Dahre cut in.

  “Within reason,” Michel agreed. “We can’t do this on a budget, of course, but based on what you already have set up here, I think we can do it without going crazy. A couple more thugs, plus fifty thousand krana for bribes—”

  He was interrupted again, this time by Devin-Mezi. She burst out laughing. “Fifty thousand a person? What, are you planning on taking a cut of each bribe?”

  “Total,” Michel snapped at her. “Spread fifty thousand around the Depths with a little bit of thought and we’ll find this freedom fighter right quick.” He glanced at Ichtracia, who still stood near the door with her hands in her pockets, eyeballing the group. She had already begun to get more comfortable around the Palo, but he could still see a bit of wariness in her eyes, her body tensed as if ready to run or fight. “Look,” he said to Devin-Mezi, “if you want to jump around chasing ghosts, fine by me. I’ve got a weekly retainer. But my finding bonus is bigger the quicker I get things done and this is the way to do it. Or I’ll walk.”

  Dahre got to his feet quickly, clearing his throat. “No, no!” he said. “No need to walk away. I like where this is going. Method might be the very thing we need to find this bitch and get back to settling the Depths.”

  Devin-Mezi sneered at Michel. Couhila looked pleased with himself. Michel noted that the old police sergeant wasn’t a fan of the young upstart. He could use that information to his advantage. “Right. You mentioned the catacombs. Are they on the map?” Michel asked.

  “As many as we could piece together. That big Blackhat purge shuffled through a thousand miles of catacombs, so we know them a little better than we did before, but there’s still a lot of space.” Dahre approached the map, squinting at it. “To be honest, most of the more traditional Palo are scared of them. Superstition and all that. She might be hiding out there, but there are still cave-ins, booby traps, bad air, and the real threat of getting lost. I’d wager next week’s wages that she’s here in the Depths.”

  Michel began shaking his head before Dahre was finished talking. He agreed with the foreman, but he also didn’t want them to actually catch Mama Palo. He needed them to get close—just close enough that he could find her on his own. No harm in muddying the water a little. “I respectfully disagree. Danger might keep some of us away from the catacombs, but not a freedom fighter. Their whole life is danger. The prospect of getting lost won’t scare them. We need to look under every rock, search every tunnel. If you have extra people, put them on regular sweeps.”

  Dahre scowled, but gave a reluctant nod.

  Michel examined the map for a few moments. “We start here,” he said, pointing to a spot not all that far from the quarry. “The first thing we do is canvas. Minor bribes, promises of jobs and riches. Then we act quickly on any information we get in this area. Smash-and-grab sort of raids that might let us get our hands on a lieutenant or anyone else who knows more about Mama Palo’s whereabouts.”

  “This technique. It’s just like the Blackhats,” Couhila said. By his tone he was just trying to be helpful, but a round of scowls followed the suggestion.

  Michel spat on the floor and made a disgusted face. “Unfortunately, yes. Those shitbags are good at this sort of thing.”

  “I don’t like using their tactics,” the Palo dressed like a Brudanian merchant spoke up.

  “You think the Blackhats invented this kind of thing?” Michel said, turning aggressively on the man. “No. This kind of thing has been happening for a thousand years. If you want to make a political statement about it, be my guest, but do it after we’ve done our jobs.” He let his glare pass around the room, noting Dahre’s smirk. The foreman knew exactly what Michel was doing and he seemed to approve.

  Of course he did. This was just another job to finish.

  “All right, let’s get going,” Michel said, pointing around the group. “The Depths has as many as twenty levels, right? You two, take the top levels. You three try to drop down just below them. You three get the bottom level. Me and Avenya will fill in everything else. Remember, we’re not trying to grab anyone, not immediately. Right now we’re just asking questions, spreading around a little bit of money. Maybe some of these Dynize rations cards. You find anything, you report it to me and Dahre.”

  The group began to split up. Michel waited until most were gone and went over to Dahre. “Sorry for taking over there,” he said quietly. “Didn’t mean to step on your toes.” Polite and likable. The best way to infiltrate an enemy.

  Dahre waved it off. “You know what you’re doing. I’m just a quarry foreman who the boss trusts.” He grimaced. “You get this damn thing over with quick and I’ll buy you a drink. Pit, I’ll recommend we keep you on retainer.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Michel promised, then headed for the door. He waited until they were some distance from the quarry and had lost their new coworkers before he rubbed both hands through his short hair and bent over, staring at the slime-covered ground and taking long, unsteady breaths. He let his disguise slowly drop, losing the quietly confident smile and the thoughtful look in his eye. His body was suddenly seized with the tension of being someone else the whole day, and he saw a bit of a tremble in his fingertips.

  “I don’t think I ever realized how terrifying you are.”

  Michel looked up at Ichtracia. Her body language was still very tense, but now she was watching him with a strange look in her eye. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Watching you slide into a different person like it was a suit of clothes. Glad-handing. Warm and friendly. When I found out that you weren’t who you said you were, I thought both myself and Yaret were fools for taking you in. But now that I’ve seen you work…” She let out a small laugh and shook her head. “I knew you were good at what you do, but that is absolutely frightening.”

  Michel sm
iled at the compliment, but he didn’t feel it. There was a sour note in his stomach that he couldn’t ignore—one that he’d felt on several occasions. Dahre, Couhila, even Devin-Mezi. All these Palo working for Meln-Dun weren’t bad people. “I like Dahre,” he said quietly.

  “He seems like a competent sort. But he was taken in by you in an instant.”

  “More’s the pity.”

  “You don’t want to do your job?” Ichtracia seemed surprised by this.

  “It’s not about ‘want.’ I need to, so I will. But deceiving all these people day in, day out. It…” Michel trailed off. He’d been about to say “it takes its toll,” but considering that Ichtracia was one of those people he’d deceived, he didn’t expect much empathy. Slowly, he pulled his mask back on. “Let’s do a little groundwork for Dahre’s group. See if we can get a whiff of Mama Palo.”

  Ichtracia watched him carefully for a moment, clearly thrown off by his shift back into character. “Think we’ll find her?”

  “We better. My whole plan hinges on making contact. But we’ve got other work to do as well.”

  “Setting up Meln-Dun?”

  Michel grinned. “That’s the fun part, yeah.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The Dynize general arrived ten minutes early, riding up to the Adran perimeter with an honor guard of thirty soldiers and two Privileged. Vlora greeted them on foot, flanked by Davd, Nila, and Bo while Norrine and Buden kept watch for any trickery that might be afoot.

  Vlora raised a hand in greeting, standing straight with her sword at her side and wearing the returned powder-keg pin on her dress uniform. It was all she could do to remain standing after a long day of reviewing the freshly laid camp, and she half hoped that this enemy general proved to be as prickly as her colleagues and would give her an excuse to cut this worthless summit short.

  She made an effort to still her negative thoughts. Just behind her, soldiers had finished setting up the general-staff tent with chairs and refreshment near the earthworks and had begun lighting torches to fend off the coming dusk.