Blood of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  “Precocious little shit. Yeah, you’re that, too.” Styke took her hand again. “Okay, how’s this?” He forced the scowl from his face and turned his eyes downward. As they walked, he tried to hunch his shoulders, making himself remember—truly remember—those afternoons at the labor camp. Avoiding the beatings of the guards. Dodging fights with the other inmates. Just trying to get by. He remembered shrinking into himself, ticking off the hours until the next parole hearing.

  He couldn’t even remember what had broken inside himself to become such a mouse. Whatever it was, it had healed. He would die before he let himself become that again. But… Celine was right. He needed to at least act like a mouse again to get his people through this damned city.

  “That’s better,” Celine said, examining him with a critical eye. “Don’t make eye contact with people.”

  “You really pay attention to this sort of thing?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  He grimaced. “Right. I’ll practice this. And when I’m finished being a ‘slave,’ I’m going to burn this city to the ground.”

  Celine giggled as if he’d said something funny, and the two of them fell into a silence. Styke did his best to keep his head down but his eyes open, and he gradually felt like it was working. People stared less when he was hunched over. Some didn’t even seem to notice him. His own perception felt as if it had widened and he began to grasp things he hadn’t before—to see the occasional foreign slave, to notice the different castes among the Dynize, including their varied clothing, the way they walked, and even their postures.

  Beside it all, he kept adding to the map of the city in his head. Talunlica was wide and open, with few enormous buildings to block out the horizon and many definite landmarks because of the surrounding mountains. But the nature of its construction presented a whole different set of challenges. The avenues jumped from island to island, with smaller bridges and causeways creating shortcuts between them. He had to keep track not just of the physical roads but also of the waterways and their widths and depths, which he noticed were marked to aid the boat traffic—of which there was a considerable amount.

  He was so focused on taking all of this in that he didn’t really notice where they were going until they arrived. Celine tugging on his hand prevented him from running into Orz. Styke looked up in surprise, rubbed at his nose, and suddenly realized that his nostrils were full of a dusty, angry scent.

  They were in a wide city square at the convergence of several avenues. Orz had led them out of the main traffic to a parklike area off to one side. Despite the crowds, the park was quiet and contemplative. People picnicked, lounged, and even prayed, and it took Styke a moment to realize why.

  The godstone rose above them. They were not at its base—that was behind a large stone wall that separated the imperial compound with the rest of Talunlica—but this park had been very clearly set aside as a place for some sort of worship of the stone. A short fence cordoned it off from the road, tall trees provided shade, and decorative facsimiles of the godstone about Styke’s height dotted the perimeter.

  Styke couldn’t take his eyes off the godstone. It wasn’t even the smell of sorcery that transfixed him, nor the strange knotting in his gut at the sight of it. No, it was simply the size—a single cut piece of stone that rose at least two hundred feet into the air. The effort to put it there must have been incredible. He’d seen the one in Landfall, of course, lying on its side. But this was both bigger and the center of a city that had been designed around it. There was a grandeur here that fused ancient and modern and made an impression even on him.

  He allowed Orz to lead their small group to an isolated spot at the water’s edge in one corner of the park. He leaned against a stone wall and craned his head to gaze at the stone, slack-jawed.

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” Orz asked.

  “I had my doubts,” Styke replied.

  “Worth fighting a war over?”

  “Let’s not get carried away.”

  Orz laughed. “What about you, Sister Pole?”

  Ka-poel’s examination of the stone seemed far more clinical than Styke’s. She looked it up and down, one finger tapping against her jaw. She gestured, and Celine translated dutifully: I need to get closer.

  “This is the closest we can get,” Orz said. “This park is technically within the imperial compound, but the walls were moved when they realized that people were blocking traffic to worship the stone.”

  “I heard a rumor,” Styke said, “that the stone in Landfall was driving people mad.”

  “Not a rumor,” Orz replied. “The power of this stone is dampened by the bone-eyes, but it still drives someone mad every week or so.”

  “That doesn’t make me want to stand near it.”

  Orz seemed amused by the note of reluctance in Styke’s voice. “Doesn’t it? There is a whole town dedicated to those who’ve been driven mad by the stone. It’s got a very nice view from that mountain over there.” He pointed to their northwest. “They’re considered holy men. Many of the worshipers here come every day in the hope that they’re claimed next.”

  Styke snorted. He’d never taken much to religion himself. “Aside from the idea of messing with things clearly beyond the scope of normal humans,” he said, “I’m shocked that a people advanced enough to create this city are stupid enough to worship a stone that drives them mad.” He watched Orz through the corner of his eye, curious if his words would offend.

  The dragonman just shrugged. “Everyone needs to believe in something to feel truly whole. Sometimes that’s an emperor or a god or a politician. Sometimes it’s themselves. Other times it’s the promise of an ancient stone driving them mad. It mitigates the pain of real life, I believe.”

  “Is this what you wanted to show us?” Styke asked. Ka-poel was still engrossed in the stone, her fingers twitching in no understandable language and her lips pursed. She looked like she was itching for that closer look.

  “Among other things,” Orz said.

  “And what are those other things?”

  “Just this.” Orz gestured expansively. “I wanted to show you the city, to let you feel its heartbeat. You still intend on attacking it, unless I’m mistaken.”

  Styke looked around, but they were well out of earshot of anyone else. “That’s the idea.”

  “I wanted to show you that it is just a city. These are normal people living normal lives.”

  “Most cities are full of them,” Styke replied, unsure as to what Orz was getting at.

  “Yes, and that’s my point.” Orz sighed. “These aren’t evil people. They’ve been goaded into a foreign war by an evil man, yes. But most of them will never see Fatrasta. They don’t know or even care about the machinations of Ka-Sedial. They’re just living their lives and they look to the godstone as a representative of something better.”

  “A new god?” Styke asked skeptically.

  “A uniting god. Past glories of an entire hemisphere under one banner, living in peace.”

  Styke harrumphed.

  “Is it a sin to hope for better?”

  “At the cost of my own people? Yes.”

  “Your own people are usurpers. They came across the ocean mere generations ago. They slaughtered, subjugated, and enslaved the Palo and took the land for their own.”

  “I mean Fatrastans,” Styke replied, feeling a little heated. He pulled his anger down.

  “Fatrastans? The concept of a Fatrastan people is less than a generation old.”

  “Does it matter whether a people is a decade old or twenty centuries?”

  “I’d imagine it does,” Orz replied.

  “I feel like you’re arguing that the Dynize are right in attacking my people,” Styke said. “But right had nothing to do with it. They’re still my people, and they’re still being attacked.”

  “That’s not what he’s arguing.” Celine sniffed, climbing up on the stone fence beside Styke.

  “Eh?” Both he and Orz looked at
her.

  “He’s just trying to say that people are the same everywhere. They’re just trying to live their lives.” Celine produced a pebble from one pocket and tossed it over her shoulder into the water behind them, smiling at the distinctive plop that it made when it landed. “He’s trying to ask you not to slaughter everyone when you attack the city.”

  Orz blinked at Celine for a few moments, then a grin spread across his face. “This child never ceases to astound me. Yes, Ben Styke. That’s what I’m asking.”

  Styke chewed on the inside of his cheek. It was both a simple request and a difficult one. Attacking a city was never pretty and often included a great deal of bloodshed on both sides. The attackers, no matter how modern-minded and disciplined, always had their blood up by the time they got inside—and that often led to sacking and looting. His gut instinct was to tell Orz that the Mad Lancers were above all that, but he remembered what Valyaine had told him back in Bellport. The Mad Lancers had done everything and anything they’d wanted during the Revolution, always with a word of justification. They’d do the same here.

  Celine suddenly slipped from her seat and headed across the park. Styke was about to call after her when he saw her destination—a gathering of children not far from them, all seated in a semicircle around a large wooden box with black curtains. Exchanging a glance with Orz, he followed her over.

  It was a puppet show, and he found himself smiling as he joined Celine at the back of the semicircle. The puppets were in the middle of some sort of conflict. On one side were morion-helmed puppets with freckled faces. On the other were comically oversized giants in sunflower yellow. This was the Fatrastan War, he realized immediately. For a brief moment he thought that the giants were supposed to be him, but then he realized that they were just ordinary Fatrastan soldiers, made larger to show their menace.

  It did not take long to follow the gist of the show. On one side, the Dynize. Conquering heroes, overwhelming the larger, angrier Fatrastans. More freckled puppets joined from the Fatrastan side, these ones bent and downtrodden until the Fatrastan soldiers had been slain. Palo. Freed from servitude.

  One of the Fatrastan giants fell with a sword through the belly and was tossed out onto the ground by the puppeteer. Styke found his eyes drawn to that one puppet, lying broken on the stone, and he found himself considering Orz’s words. It was easy to dismiss this all as propaganda, but it was harder to dismiss the fact that Lindet would spread the exact same kind of propaganda throughout her own people.

  Everyone wanted to feel like they were the good guys, just as Styke had always denied the unjust ferocity of the Mad Lancers within his own head.

  He took Celine by the hand and led her back to Orz and Ka-poel. “Does everyone here think that we’re monsters?” he asked Orz.

  “Many of them, yes,” Orz admitted. “We have a very deep cultural feeling of superiority that goes back thousands of years. It’s not difficult to build upon that. They’re wrong, of course. I’ve seen your people and I believe they are no different from my own. That’s why I began this discussion.”

  “I don’t think I agree.”

  “Oh?”

  “At least, not personally.” He thought of those big, fallen puppets. “I am a monster. I’ve had to be to protect my country. Just like you dragonmen.”

  Orz didn’t reply.

  Styke went on slowly. “I don’t intend on sticking around,” he said slowly. “Once I’ve found Ibana, we’re going to get in and out. Fight our way to the compound and take over the godstone, then defend it just long enough for Ka-poel to do her thing.” He didn’t mention his contingency plans—kidnapping the emperor, setting fires, fomenting chaos. He hoped that it didn’t come to any of that. The faster they were able to destroy the godstone, the better. But this little walk had also told him how the people of Dynize felt about their godstone, and he wondered if the Mad Lancers would flee the city at the head of a mob once they’d destroyed the thing.

  They’d have to deal with that when it came up.

  “Let’s go,” Orz said, leading them away from the imperial compound and back the way they’d come. They turned off a main avenue and proceeded down a narrow causeway until they were practically alone in the middle of the lake, between two of the islands of city. Orz pointed. “Do you see that small street jutting into the water over there?”

  Styke picked it out. “Yes.”

  “That’s where my mother and father live. And that there”—he swept his finger across the water, up the shoreline, and centered it on a walled compound about a mile from the godstone—“that is my old Household. My brother runs it now.”

  “He has an entire compound?”

  “Pay attention, and you’ll see them dotted all over the city. Hundreds. My brother’s is one of the smaller ones, to be honest. His name is Etzi, and he is the Minister of Drainage.”

  Styke snorted.

  “Don’t laugh! It’s a small Household but an important job. Etzi’s task is to keep the city from flooding during the wet months or the lake from draining during the dry. He oversees sewage and the hunting of swamp dragons that make their way into the lake.”

  “How are we going to convince your brother to abandon his Household and go into hiding?”

  “We won’t. I don’t even want him to know we’re here.”

  “Then, why show me?”

  “I want you to avoid that compound when you invade.”

  “Ah.”

  “I don’t want my brother involved. He is not like my parents—he loved our emperor, and he took some convincing to reconcile with Sedial when our emperor was assassinated. But he has a good life now. I’m not even going to speak to him before we leave.”

  “He’s not in danger from Sedial?”

  “I don’t believe so. He’s too important…” Orz trailed off, his eyes fixing on the horizon just above the city, staring at nothing. “This is the cost of being a ‘monster,’” he said quietly. “It is losing all you love. I recommend that you regain your humanity as much as you can, Ben Styke.” Before Styke could answer, he cleared his throat. “Come, let us return to the inn. We’ll need some rest before we go to fetch my parents tonight.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Michel spent the better part of the next day with Dahre’s crew, canvassing the Depths for alternative leads and discussing the best plan of attack for cornering Mama Palo. He made plausible excuses to slip out of the quarry to make his own arrangements—studying maps, walking out an escape route, and even buying a pistol. He kept Ichtracia close in case the whole thing went badly.

  Against his own instincts he began to fill her in on his plans. Things were moving too quickly now to keep her entirely in the dark. She took the explanations in stride, weathering them as she had everything else, with a steely-eyed acceptance and, maybe hidden beneath it all, a touch of nerves.

  They returned to their apartment at dark. Michel went over everything in his head again and again as he lay in bed, listening to Ichtracia’s gentle snores. His own nerves, he decided, were too thinly strung by the uncertainty of all this.

  Michel was just beginning to drift off when the sound of footsteps in the hall brought him back to wakefulness. It took him a moment of confusion to figure out what his subconscious was telling him—dozens of people walked back and forth down this hall every day, after all. The steps, he decided, had very definitely stopped outside of their door.

  He’d only just made this connection when he heard another noise—the click of a latch. In an instant Michel’s adrenaline was pumping, his heart hammering. A thousand explanations passed through his head as to why someone might be coming into their room unannounced: an innocent mistake, an assassin, a message from Emerald. It was the second that he feared, though he wasn’t entirely sure who would try to kill him. If it was the Dynize, they’d have just swarmed the building with soldiers and kicked the door in.

  All of this flashed through his mind in the few moments it took for the door to open. It happe
ned quickly enough that he didn’t have the chance to so much as poke Ichtracia. Her steady, deep breathing continued beside him, and he tensed himself, eyes open to slits, and watched the silhouette of a figure appear in the doorway. His brand-new pistol was beneath the bed, out of reach, and unloaded anyway. His knuckledusters, however, were just beneath his pillow.

  He kept his own breathing steady so as not to betray his wakefulness as a second figure appeared in the doorway. Michel caught sight of the very distinct glint of a knife. The first figure paused by the foot of their mattress, turned back to the second. Something was whispered between them.

  Michel lashed out with one foot, felt it connect with a knee. The figure cried out and tumbled to the floor. Michel was on his feet in a flash. He snatched up his knuckledusters, trying to seat them onto the fingers of both hands while getting his bearings in the dark room. The first figure let out a string of curses in Palo, while the second one attempted to leap at Michel but was blocked by the flailing heap his companion had made on the floor.

  Michel saw another glint on the floor and stepped on the blade of a knife before it could be retrieved by its owner. He’d only just managed to do so when she surged to her feet, catching him in the stomach with her shoulder and throwing him hard against the wall. His breath was snatched from him in a wheezy grunt, and he pounded his fists on her back.

  They wrestled for several moments, Michel’s attention fully on the woman with her arms around his waist, when he felt fingers take a handful of his hair and jerk his head to one side. Something sharp touched his neck and he felt a bead of something wet on his skin—for the sparest of moments he was convinced that his throat had been slashed. He froze, hand going to his throat, but was shaken hard by the second attacker’s fingers in his hair.

  “Move,” a voice hissed, “and you’re a dead man.”

  Michel felt his eyes bugging out, his whole body trembling. He was far from a true fighter, and all their movements had been a frenetic scramble up to this point. That knife at his throat, however, had taken all the fight out of him, and he found his body frozen in self-preservation. A small voice in the back of his head told him that he knew how this would go—a few questions and then a bloody smile. Fighting back was all he could do. But his limbs wouldn’t answer his commands.