Wrath of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  Prime sat outside a café in the one small area of town that could be considered posh—if one squinted a little. It was midday, and he was enjoying a coffee, biscuits, and a newspaper while he faced away from the sun.

  Vlora forced herself to act casual, turning slowly to cut across traffic and heading around to a nearby storefront where she could get a good look at his face without crossing his line of sight. Once she could clearly see the inkvine birthmark that cut across the left side of his face, she knew he was definitely Prime Lektor.

  Vlora waffled. A part of her wanted to walk over, pull up a seat, and ask Prime straight out why he was here. It was a foolish thought, one that she had no problem talking herself out of, and instead she circled around behind him and took a seat on a nearby stoop where she could keep an eye on him over her newspaper.

  She only half read the articles as she watched the back of Prime’s head. The news was all two weeks old, and was filled with rampant speculation regarding the war, Dynize military might, rumors of Lindet’s assassination, and more. Nothing looked reliable and it frustrated her to no end, so she turned her attention purely on Prime.

  One of the odd quirks of sorcery was that a powder mage could sense a Privileged, but a Privileged could not sense a powder mage. Vlora did not know if the same rule applied to the Predeii, but considering that Prime didn’t just turn around and incinerate her, she assumed that it did.

  The immediate problem was that, while she definitely recognized Prime Lektor, she could not sense his sorcerous presence. He was cloaking himself from any such scrying. It would make him difficult to follow or predict.

  She tried to think of any possible reason for his presence in Yellow Creek—aside from the godstone. Nothing came to mind, and that left her with a number of pressing questions. What were his intentions regarding the stone? Had he already found it? Was he alert and ready in case he was found, or was he complacent in his power? There were no easy answers, which meant Vlora would have to find them the hard way, the dangerous way.

  It was about thirty minutes before Prime folded his paper, finished off his coffee, and stood up. He was dressed as a frontier gentleman, with a tan cotton suit and matching top hat, a cane, and a pair of spectacles perched on the front of his nose. He surreptitiously took a look around before tucking the paper under one arm and heading down the street.

  Vlora followed at a distance.

  She didn’t have to go far. Prime took a right at the next intersection and walked up to the front door of what passed for a townhouse in a frontier city. The building was a narrow two stories, a mix of wood and plaster construction with a sharply slanted roof and cheerful bright green shutters. Prime let himself in, leaving Vlora lurking at the corner and completely uncertain about what to do next.

  She carefully cast her senses toward the townhouse, feeling around with a light, tentative touch for wards. There were all sorts of passive things a Privileged could do to protect a location. Doorknobs could be warded to stun or kill anyone who touched them, floors could inform the Privileged when someone had walked upon them, and whole buildings could be prepped to explode when entered. Wards were also, as far as Vlora was aware, next to impossible to hide completely.

  Field Marshal Tamas had been an expert at detecting wards. He’d even taught Vlora how to pick a ward apart—something that most Privileged still considered impossible for a powder mage—but Vlora had never really caught on to the latter ability. The former, however, she’d grown quite good at.

  Yet she sensed nothing, even when she poked around for the telltale signs of a ward that had been folded in on itself to hide it.

  She was just beginning to wonder if she’d gone mad when the front door to the townhouse opened. She took a half step back, trying to look inconspicuous. Prime didn’t even look up, staring at the front of his folded newspaper with a scowl as he walked briskly past her. She waited a few moments, then turned to follow him.

  Had he already noticed her and was leading her into a trap? She tried to remember every detail about him. He was an academic, supporting Tamas during the Adran coup, and had apparently masqueraded as a succession of vice chancellors of Adopest University for hundreds of years. He might genuinely be absentminded, content that his power kept him hidden.

  Vlora was deep in thought when she looked up to find that she was no longer following Prime. Her heart quickened and she doubled her pace, hurrying to the next intersection. She checked doorways and alleys for fifty yards. She even looked back down the street to see if he’d doubled back.

  No such luck. He had disappeared entirely.

  Vlora swore under her breath. This asshole could disappear, both in this world and in the Else. She couldn’t see him; she couldn’t sense him. He could be standing right behind her and she wouldn’t notice it.

  She doubled back around the block several times just in case she had missed him. After waiting for nearly ten minutes for him to reappear, she headed to his townhouse, where she walked up to the front door, took a hit of powder, and closed her eyes. In a deep powder trance she could hear footsteps, heavy breathing, sometimes even a heartbeat. She tried to focus on the house, ignoring the ambient sound of the street.

  Nothing.

  Searching his residence might turn up clues to the godstone’s location. But if she hadn’t been able to sense him disappear, that meant that he could create wards that she couldn’t sense, either. Walking straight into his house might get her killed.

  She waffled on the front step for a moment before noticing an old woman sweeping the steps of the next house over. The woman glanced up, noticed that Vlora was watching her, and leaned heavily on her broom. “What you selling?” she demanded.

  The question caught Vlora off guard. “Excuse me?”

  “The gentleman who owns that house doesn’t like to be bothered. If you’re selling something, you can tell me and I’ll let him know when he’s next in.”

  “Does he often buy things?”

  “Never. But he likes to know who’s knocking on his door. So you can either leave me your card or bugger off.”

  Vlora hesitated, trying to concoct some sort of story that wouldn’t make Prime suspicious. Coming up with nothing, she tipped her hat to the old woman and made her retreat, heading down the street without a backward glance and frustrated that she’d not learned anything new about Prime.

  She corrected herself on that last thought. She had learned two things: one, that Prime could disappear at will, and two, that Prime paid his neighbors to watch the house for him while he was out. If he was worried about being tracked down, it meant he was hiding something, and she was willing to bet it wasn’t just his own sorcerous nature.

  CHAPTER 34

  The Mad Lancers left Bellport, heading west along the northern coast of the Hammer. They traveled slowly, sending out as many scouts as they dared and avoiding the larger towns and cities already flying the Dynize flag. They even stayed several miles inland to avoid being spotted by Dynize ships—of which, their scouts informed them, there were dozens plying the waters back and forth between Fatrasta and Dynize.

  Styke kept to himself for several days, content to ride with the rear guard while recovering from the beating Valyaine gave him and teaching Celine how to handle her new horse. The creature turned out to be more stubborn than Styke had initially guessed, and would have found itself discarded with the rest of the extra horses had Celine not taken an equally stubborn liking to it.

  Frequent reports came from Ibana with the vanguard. Styke read the reports and sent orders to the front. During the evenings he helped train the newest recruits—having picked up almost five hundred volunteers in Bellport—while Celine continued to learn Ka-poel’s language.

  On the fourth day of riding, Styke heard the distant report of artillery and made his way up the winding line of cavalry, joining Ibana with the vanguard over a mile ahead. She sat on her horse on a cliff top, eyes focused on something in the distance. Jackal, bearing the Mad Lancer stan
dard, sat with her.

  To the northwest, Styke was able to see the source of the cannon fire that continued to echo across the water. There was a small fortress, whose name had long since escaped him, positioned at the end of a long breakwater. It overlooked the space between the Hammer and an unnamed island, and it was exchanging a violent torrent of fire with a sizable Dynize fleet positioned in a half-moon around the fortress.

  “I’m guessing,” Ibana said without lowering her looking glass, “that you’ve been skulking with the rear guard the last few days because you failed to kill Valyaine?”

  Styke glanced around. The only people within earshot were Jackal, Celine, and Ka-poel. Styke looked to Jackal, whose Palo freckles had darkened with all the time out in the sun. Jackal simply lifted his hands. This was not something he wanted to get involved with.

  “I’ve been teaching Celine to ride her new horse.”

  Ibana snapped her looking glass closed and turned toward Styke. “I heard you let Valyaine beat the shit out of you.”

  “ ‘Let’ seems a strong word. He’s a champion boxer.”

  “And you have the biggest knife on the continent,” Ibana retorted. “Why the pit did you square up fisticuffs against a champion boxer?”

  “I wanted to see if I could kill him with my fists.”

  “It didn’t work out. He betrayed you, and he’s still alive.”

  “I can always go back and gut him later,” Styke said, the words coming out a little more petulant than he’d intended.

  Ibana fixed Styke with a long stare and then turned to Celine. “What’s her name, sweetheart?” she asked gently, indicating Celine’s horse.

  Celine beamed. “Margo. She already had the name and I liked it, so I decided to let her keep it.”

  “That’s a good name,” Ibana replied. She nudged her own horse, quickly trotting around Margo before nodding. “Looks like a good horse.”

  “Ben bought her for me.” There was an edge of challenge in Celine’s voice, as if daring Ibana to question the man who would acquire a horse for a little girl. Styke almost laughed out loud.

  He butted in before Ibana could get annoyed. “I haven’t been hiding,” he said.

  “Good,” Ibana said simply. She drew closer to Styke, letting her voice fall. She didn’t look happy with what she was about to say, but she continued on. “You know it just as well as I do—the Mad Lancers ride on their reputation. On your reputation. You start sparing people who have betrayed you and people will think you’ve gone soft. The prospect of your knife is the only thing that keeps some of these bastards in line.”

  Styke sat back in his saddle, unsure how to respond. He remembered Agoston’s blood running down his arms, and then sparing Tenny Wiles. “They start to get uppity and I’ll set them straight.”

  “It’s never come to that before. I don’t want it to come to that.”

  Styke snorted. “Let me handle my vengeance the way I see fit.”

  “I will. It’s just … a word of warning, that’s all.”

  “Thank you,” Styke replied.

  Ibana nodded and rode off a few dozen yards, pulling out her looking glass to watch the distant bombardment. Styke turned to Jackal. “How has the ride been?”

  “Easy enough,” Jackal said. “Scouts are keeping us clear of Dynize forces. How is the rear guard?”

  “Boring,” Styke replied. He nodded to the distant fortress. “Do the spirits tell you how much longer that fortress will last?”

  Jackal’s eyes immediately went over Styke’s shoulder, and it took him a moment to realize Jackal was looking directly at Ka-poel. “Are you kidding? Only the bravest spirits will come within a mile of her. I can always tell when she’s getting near because they flee before she arrives.”

  “You hear that, blood-lady?” Styke called. “The spirits are afraid of you.”

  Ka-poel seemed entirely unimpressed.

  “But it doesn’t take the spirits,” Jackal said, returning his gaze to the distant fort, “to see they’re almost done for. There’s six ships of the line out there and two brigades cutting off any support from the mainland. The fortress will fall within days.” He gave Styke a curious look. “Are we going to relieve them?”

  Styke glanced at Ka-poel. “Is the godstone in that fort?”

  She shook her head.

  “No,” he told Jackal. “I’m not suicidal enough to charge two brigades in clear view of a supporting enemy fleet.” Besides, he added to himself, they’d already resupplied at Bellport. “We’ll have to swing around those two brigades. With luck, they’ll be so focused on the fort that they don’t even notice us.”

  Styke heard a sudden shout from down the road. He turned, curious, and was soon joined by Ibana. “What was that?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Styke lifted Amrec’s reins, spotting a dust cloud rising from a nearby hill, and a familiar old face suddenly burst into view. Sunintiel clung to her horse’s neck, both she and her animal streaming tears from the hard ride, her wrinkled skin covered in a sheen of sweat. She stood in the stirrups, not bothering to slow.

  “We’ve been ambushed!” she shouted. “Dynize cavalry from the rear!”

  Styke whipped Amrec into a gallop. “Stay with Celine,” he ordered Sunin. He pointed a finger behind him as he charged past. “And keep Ka-poel out of the fight!”

  He and Ibana raced along the road, past the milling of confused cavalrymen. Styke came around the hill into the valley that contained the bulk of his forces, taking in the situation at a glance. Dynize dragoons had swept in from the southern end of the valley, crossing a small creek and opening fire with carbines on the Mad Lancers, who were still strung out along the road.

  There were at least three thousand dragoons, with more coming over the hill, and they raked the lancers’ flank with perfect precision, hitting them with a torrent of carbine fire in companies of a hundred before retreating out of range to reload. The lancers were in chaos—those that tried to fire back couldn’t pack a big enough punch, and the few that charged were deftly avoided and gunned down.

  Another wave of dragoons suddenly appeared at the other end of the valley, blocking a retreat along the road and engaging the rear guard with a withering fusillade.

  Styke pressed Amrec harder, weaving among his confused troops. “Ibana!” he shouted. “Take the vanguard and swing around to their flank. They’re not wearing breastplates. Hit the bastards with our lances!”

  He continued on without waiting for an answer, galloping toward the rear guard and the fresh recruits being cut to ribbons. He passed Major Gustar, who’d just barely organized the Riflejack cavalry core enough to return fire. “Press them hard,” Styke shouted, slowing just enough to get his orders out. “That hill they came down was easier for them to descend than it will be to go back up. Send your cuirassiers straight at their center!”

  Styke was quickly past. He urged Amrec harder, watching as more of his cavalry fell to the enemy carbine volleys. The Dynize became bolder, pressing in on the rear guard, not bothering to retreat before they reloaded their weapons. Styke finally reached the rear guard, who were desperately trying to reload their own carbines.

  “Blast the carbines!” Styke roared as he whipped past them. “Lances down! Charge!” He snatched up his lance, lowering the steel tip as he broke through the confused line of his own men and up the open road toward the Dynize.

  Dragoons had come within ten yards and they seemed shocked to see him charging toward them wearing one of their own breastplates. A bullet whizzed past Styke’s ear and he felt another slam into the breastplate, jerking him back in the saddle. He kept his hold on the reins and on his lance, leaning forward.

  The closest Dynize fumbled with his carbine, dropped it, then tried to urge his horse to run in the opposite direction. Styke’s lance clipped him in the side, tearing out four inches of flesh and several feet of intestine and burying it into the next dragoon. Letting go of his weighty lance, Styke drew his cavalry sword an
d urged Amrec forward, laying about him with his weapon.

  Gore whipped from the rise and fall of his sword. Blood spattered his lips, but Styke didn’t bother to check if it was his own or the enemy’s. Their sudden onslaught turned to confusion at his charge, and still he pushed deeper, using Amrec’s mighty chest to shove past the smaller Dynize horses.

  Only upon turning to block the sword thrust of an enemy did Styke see that the new recruits had not, actually, followed him into the fray. Some of them stared at him dumbly while others fumbled for their lances. It wasn’t until Jackal appeared, waving the skull-and-lance flag and charging forward, that they seemed to break out of their shock and attack.

  A straight-bladed dragoon sword caught in the clasp of Styke’s breastplate. He sheared off the arm holding it and discarded the blade, but the clasp snapped at the next impact of an enemy bullet. With one quick movement, Styke bit down on Amrec’s reins and used his left hand to pry the other clasp off the broken breastplate. He swung it over his head and threw it at a charging dragoon, knocking the rider off his horse. Reins still between his teeth, he drew his boz knife and rammed it into the chest of a man whose mount had been pushed too close in the melee. He jerked it out and threw it overhand into the neck of a horse. The horse screamed, throwing its rider.

  Styke finally fought his way to the top of the ridge, looking down at the road. It was covered with the bodies of men and horses—almost all of them belonging to the new recruits from Bellport, stragglers who’d fallen behind the rear guard. With a glance Styke could see how the dragoons had come out of the trees, catching them completely unawares and slaughtering them without a fight.

  The glance also told him that he’d reached the very edge of this wave of dragoons—they had no more men attacking the rear guard. He whirled to rally the rear, to dispose of these dragoons and join Gustar and Ibana to fight their main force.