A Blight of Blackwings

by Kevin Hearne

  I match strides with Captain Khatagar as we follow the labyrinthine twists and turns of the palace that lead to the dungeon entrance.

  “Wait until we get in there to talk,” I tell him. “Words are fair game around here.”

  “Understood.”

  I’m grinning as the captain opens the entrance to the dungeon and waves me in. Dungeons are such happy places. They’re dark, dank, sepulchral, and full of secrets. Like what I do to prisoners before I have their bodies dumped on the plains and the things they tell me before they scream and whimper their last.

  The air is thick with fear and mold and the lingering aromas of various excretions of the body. Normally I don’t want to smell such things, but if they weren’t present in a dungeon, I’d be disappointed. A pine-fresh scent in a subterranean space designed for terror, punishment, and death would be highly inappropriate. Once the door is properly barred behind us and we descend to the bottom of the stairs, where the guard station is, I tell the guards to go check on something far away and give them some time to get out of range before I nod at Khatagar.

  “Tell me, quietly.”

  “We got a tip from a regular informant who frequents the slaughterhouse district. Took some work, but a team followed up and brought him in.”

  “Casualties?”

  “One dead.”

  “Give every member of that team a hazard bonus, and double for the dead man’s family.”

  “Done.”

  “What have you found out so far?”

  “Nothing except that he shaved his head.”

  I winced and shivered in disgust. In a society that prized long hair, shorn skulls were horrors, and I wasn’t immune to the prejudice. “Where’s he at?”

  “Cell five.”

  “Come on.” I set out for the cell, fumbling for keys at my belt.

  “Wait, Viceroy. There’s more.”

  “Can’t I just find out as we go along? I want to see what a beast caller looks like.”

  I open the door to cell five to find a filthy urchin staring back at me. He’s shirtless and starving, his ribs clearly defined, dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes. His arms and legs are tied to a chair. The shaved head is a patchy job done inexpertly with a knife, since chunks of it are longer than others. His skin is smeared with splotches of brown and black, and his personal odor is an instant winner for Worst of the Dungeon.

  “Tits on toast, man, why does he smell like that?” I say, gagging as Khatagar enters behind me. “Did he shit himself?”

  “In a manner of speaking, I guess he did. They found him in the sewer, and he had gone down there of his own free will. It was no wonder we couldn’t find him.”

  “How did you find him and not the others?”

  “Informant saw him ducking down a hole last night. He was sleeping not far up the tunnel from there. The others might be still down there somewhere.”

  “I presume you have people looking?”

  “Yes.”

  The boy’s eyes flicker at that, but I see no changes around his mouth. It is just a flash of something, a hint of a reaction, but I’m not sure what it signifies.

  “Good. So which one is this?”

  “This is the one who has an affinity for serpents.”

  “Oh, the one who had the stripe of yellow hair? So that’s why he shaved it. I see. And is this room, uh…snakeproof?”

  “I think so. No vents. Door seal is tight. The drain in the floor,” he says, as he points to it in the center, “is grated with small circles. You might get roaches and other bugs coming up, but nothing bigger than that.”

  “Very well. What’s your name, boy?”

  His voice is conversational, even confident, like we’re sharing drinks and a nice cheese plate near the market instead of beginning an interrogation in the dungeon. No trace of fear or even nervousness. “Sudhi. What’s yours?”

  “Viceroy Bhamet Senesh.”

  “Oh, yeah? So maybe you can tell me why I’m here. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You killed a guard.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. Witnesses say one of your snakes bit his face and he died.”

  “That much is true, but it’s also true that it’s not my fault. You come up all threatening to a viper and it’s going to defend itself. I didn’t tell the viper to do it. Guard brought it on himself. More like he committed suicide.”

  “And the guard who got stung to death by bees committed suicide too?”

  “I didn’t see that happen until it was over. But, look, that wasn’t me either. I’ve not done anything to you, and I haven’t broken any laws. And if I’m living in the sewer, you can’t exactly call me a drain on city resources, heh heh. Little plumbing joke there. You like it? I got lots of those.”

  “You think this is amusing?”

  “Jokes are amusing to most people. Being tied up and beaten isn’t so much, if that’s what you mean. Those are different things, though.”

  “Why were you in the sewers, Sudhi, if you did nothing wrong?”

  “Well, I expected to be tied up and beaten at some point, you know? Have my word questioned. And, wow, here we are.”

  Khatagar growls at him, “Look, boy, if you thought you were in deep shit in the sewer, you have no idea what you’re in now.”

  “Oh, I think I have a very good idea, Captain. I’m not ever going to see the sun again. Never going to be free. Going to die down here, sooner or later. I’m thinking sooner since you need to show people there’s no saving them from you, not ever. That’s really why I’m here. Not because you care about your guards at the gate. You only care that we made you look weak without even trying.”

  Khatagar punches him in the gut and then follows up with a right hook to the jaw. I shake my head at the captain before he does any more. I wouldn’t have ordered that; the words didn’t bother me. For one thing, the kid was right about all of it. He’s a sharp one. But I guess Khatagar doesn’t like being called weak. Good to know.

  The kid wheezes and spits blood, and I wait until he’s recovered enough to answer more questions.

  “So let me get this straight. You’re probably going to die down here—your words, not mine—and you don’t care?”

  “I do not.”

  “Why?”

  “I was ready to die when I went for the seeking, Viceroy. Everybody who went was ready for the same thing. They sought it out, hence the term seeking, right? Because that’s the kind of city you’re running here. You have hundreds, maybe thousands, in the streets, living without joy or even hope of joy, backs bent under the bootheels of rich folks, waiting for that extra ounce of pressure that will finally crush them and end it. That’s the way the system’s built. And when I got blessed, I saw right away that there’s still no room for me in that system. I still have to live under your fancy boot. Well, I’m not playing that game. None of us will. So you either change the game and play with us, or we’ll change it for you and you’ll be out.”

  I laugh at him. “You can’t change anything tied to a chair in a dungeon.”

  “I don’t mean me personally. I know I’m done. Congratulations, you got the weakest and the dumbest of us. And I don’t think I’m really all that dumb.”

  “No, you’re not,” I admit. “You’re seeing things pretty clearly. Perhaps you can help me with my vision.”

  Bloody drool dangles from one corner of his lips as he twists them to one side. “How delightful. Do tell me. How may I aid your metaphorical sight, Viceroy?”

  “Where is the source of the Sixth Kenning?”

  “The source changes both location and the animals that deliver it every few weeks. When we went to our seeking, it was bloodcats in a grove of nughobes south of here. Right now it
’s giant fish spiders upriver from Hashan Khek. Tomorrow it moves to a troop of golden baboons in the north.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Once you’re blessed, you sense the location of the next source.”

  “So this boy who found it first found it accidentally. There was no way he could have known that the Sixth Kenning was there at that time and place.”

  “That’s right. And now he’s safely out of your reach. He can organize seekings until there are too many of the blessed to eliminate. Just in case you were thinking you could make this all go away.”

  He might be out of my reach, but if Melishev got hold of him he wouldn’t be safe at all. “What was he doing in a nughobe grove?”

  “He didn’t share that with me.”

  “Did he share with you his confrontation with my cavalry?”

  “He didn’t have to. I was there. Your guys threatened to shoot him because he didn’t want to come back—which was stupid, because your city watch has no legal standing in the plains—and the lieutenant or whatever he was let fly. A kid stepped in front of the bolt and died. Then the lieutenant says to the rest of them that they should just kill us all to cover up his murder. Abhi got mad.”

  “He got mad?”

  “Yeah. And then the animals reacted. Wasps and flying ants and everything. Killed them all, and they deserved it. They were your guys. Murderers.”

  The captain sucks at his teeth and draws his fist back. “You little—”

  “Khatagar, please. He’s being cooperative.”

  “Yeah, Khatagar, please. Thanks for reminding him of the rules of engagement, Viceroy. You leave poor folks alone as long as they cooperate in their own slow deaths or don’t annoy your rich friends. But your men jump to violence at the slightest disagreement.” His gaze drops from mine and he glares at the captain. “Wait until I stop cooperating, murderer. Then you can bravely beat up a malnourished boy who can’t defend himself.”

  Khatagar’s eyes sparkle with hatred. “I’m going to enjoy it. Stop cooperating anytime.”

  “Tell me about your friends,” I say. “Tamhan Khatri. And the one they call Hanima.”

  He laughs and grins. “There you go, Captain. You didn’t have to wait long, eh? That was quick. You evil bastards can go fuck yourselves.”

  Khatagar doesn’t wait for my order. His fist hammers into the kid’s body and face. Teeth fly. Blood splatters on the floor and walls. The captain’s knuckles are quickly sheathed in red. I have to remind the captain that we still need answers out of the boy.

  When he finally pauses, both of them are short of breath, though Sudhi is much worse for the wear. He has to have cracked ribs, shattered cheekbones, and most definitely a broken nose and perhaps a broken jaw.

  The kid peers at the captain through an eye that’s half swollen shut, and a coughing, bloody chuckle escapes his lips. “That was it? You weak, pathetic piece of shit.” Contempt curdles in his tone, and Khatagar loses it.

  We roar together in concert, he in his rage and me trying to stop him, but he’s too fast, and I realize too late that the kid is even smarter than I thought and he saw Khatagar’s soft spot at the same time I did. Khatagar snaps his neck with a twist and dull pop, and that abruptly ends my chances to extract any more information from him.

  “Captain!”

  “What?”

  “We still don’t know the other girl’s name. We were going to find that out from him later, along with anything else we wanted to know, after a pleasant afternoon of slow torture.”

  “Oh.” His dark, brooding glare changes as it sinks in that he has ruined everything. “I’m sorry, Viceroy.”

  “I didn’t even have time to get my pincers out. The ceremonial unveiling of the instruments, that exquisite hitch in the breath as they gaze upon the steel and think of what I’m going to do to them, the sweet, sweet begging—we’re not going to get any of that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says again, and there’s a note of fear in it this time. Most viceroys are too squeamish to do their own torturing and they hire it out, though they say that it’s because they’re too busy to waste time on it or that they have more important things to do. But exerting pressure, finding leverage, squeezing what you need out of people—that’s what leadership is all about. And there’s nothing more important, in my view, than improving one’s leadership.

  “He manipulated you into killing him. Easily. Do you see that?”

  “I do now, yes.”

  “Good. I want you to think on it and what you can do to prevent that from happening in the future. But in the future, regarding these kids, if you find any more of them, you will fetch me and let me handle everything, is that understood?”

  “Yes, Viceroy.”

  “The person who tipped you off about his whereabouts: Did you pay them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pay them again. Triple. And relay my personal thanks.”

  “I will.”

  “And this is your mess. You clean it up. Don’t delegate it either. Do it personally.”

  “I will. I apologize for my lack of control. It won’t happen again.”

  “Good. And call off the search of the sewers.”

  “All right. But just so you’re aware, we’ve only searched a fraction of them.”

  “The girls won’t be down there. This kid was smart. He wanted us walking around in shit for weeks, searching for the others. I bet he even allowed himself to be seen so he’d get caught and we’d be convinced they were down there too.”

  “Why?”

  “That I don’t know, except that he wanted us to waste our time. Perhaps to give them time for something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “We need to find that out. But we did find out that the Sixth Kenning isn’t firmly established yet. We can’t do anything about the hunter boy who got away. That’s the king’s problem now. But we can do something about the other two. And that Khatri boy. Listen carefully, Sambhav.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m going to let Khatri’s father know that Sudhi is dead. He will tell Tamhan.”

  “And then Tamhan will run to tell the others and we’ll have them.”

  “Precisely. So double your watch on him after you’re finished here.”

  “Yes, Viceroy.”

  * * *

  —

  The swell of boos and jeers that came from the crowd was not for Fintan but for the viceroy. How, I wondered, did Fintan become privy to that scene in the dungeon? He moved on before anyone could ask him.

  “Meanwhile, not far away, Hanima and Adithi were about to meet some important allies….”

  Hanima was better dressed this time. It was still simple clothing, but it was clean and everything looked to be her size.

  Something has grown near the middle of the city amid news that Talala Fouz got burned down by a giant and that there’s a new king, who used to be a viceroy in Hashan Khek. That news is far away, but this tree is, like, kapoom! In my face. In everyone’s face. It’s a truly enormous thing that wasn’t there yesterday. One of the Fornish clans has sent a greensleeve and a bunch of their people to create a teahouse in a treehouse, and accelerating the growth of this tree was an astounding demonstration of the Fifth Kenning.

  Adithi and I don’t care about the risk: We have to go check it out.

  We raid the closet of the house we’re in, promising each other that we are only borrowing these clothes for a disguise. We even find boots that fit, and when we step out, hair all shining and combed, we look like we have money. We do have a few coins passed from Tamhan onto us through Khamen Chorous, so we can buy tea if we want.

  That proves to be handy. There are some wee Fornish people in maroon waistcoats at the base of the tree who welcome
paying customers to be the first to experience the Red Pheasant Teahouse, but they want to make sure people are intending to buy something before they ascend the tree. There’s a large throng of people gawking up at the huge thing, and I don’t blame them, but the line of people actually willing to pay is rather small.

  Once we jingle our purses at the barkers, they grin at us and hand us off to another Fornish person in a waistcoat, who gives us a quick orientation. She has blond hair cropped super short—mine is considered short, but she’s one step up from scalp stubble. I wonder what it must be like to just wake up and have nothing to do to your hair. I often hear that people from other cultures envy us our long locks; that is a point of pride, no doubt, but I think sometimes, on very rare occasions, we secretly envy them for not having any to speak of.

  “Hi. I’m Val Tan Vol. Is this your first time at one of our tea treehouses?”

  We nod at her and this makes her happy, because she burbles, “You’re in for a treat! We have ten tea landings for the public that you can reach by following the steps made out of living branches. They’re completely safe and will hold your weight, but of course watch your step. Just look for someone in a maroon waistcoat at any of the landings and they’ll get you seated. We ask that you don’t try to go into any of the roped-off areas up higher. Our clan also lives in this tree, and those are our private residences. Any questions?”

  “Yes. What if we need to, uh, you know, go?”

  “We have facilities on every landing.”

  “Wow. Great.”

  “Enjoy!” Val gestures ahead and leaves us to go greet someone else.

  We climb the steps and marvel at how it smells, how it looks, the flowering vines draped around the trunk, and the birds already enjoying the shelter and chirping about it. We circle the trunk a couple of times on our way up to the first landing, and it already has us far above everyone’s heads below. We can see the underside of several landings above us, and we’re told at the first three landings that they’re already full and we’ll have to keep climbing. We see small knots of people on these landings, enjoying cakes and sandwiches and tea, and I wonder where the kitchen is and where the water’s being boiled. Presumably starting a fire in a tree would not be a good idea.