Wrath of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  Something struck his shoulder just as he drew breath to bellow encouragement. He turned to see a dragoon charging him at full speed, smoking carbine being exchanged for a straight-edged sword. The rider didn’t have time to fully draw her sword before her horse struck Amrec in the shoulder, sending both Amrec and Styke tumbling.

  Styke barely managed to throw himself clear. Amrec fell on his side, legs flailing, finally righting himself and charging off before Styke could call to him.

  The Dynize dragoon allowed her own horse to regain its balance before turning on a dime and pointing her sword at Styke and digging in her heels. Styke searched for his sword only to see it caught in Amrec’s harness as the beast galloped away. He felt for his knife—remembered throwing it—and began to loudly swear at himself.

  The dragoon leapt into a gallop, her sword held to her side as she swooped in toward Styke. He remained on her sword side for as long as he dared, then leapt in front of the charging horse and across to the opposite side. Before the dragoon could change her sword hand, Styke set the foot of his good leg and barreled, shoulder-first, into the soft side of the Dynize horse. Both horse and rider went flying.

  The impact knocked the breath from Styke and nearly threw him on his ass. He barely stayed on his feet and ran toward the horse that, still flailing with pain, had his boz knife in its neck. He jerked the knife out, reversed his hold on it, and rammed the blade into the creature’s spine with one quick motion, putting it out of its misery.

  A shout of challenge was the only warning he got. The persistent dragoon leapt toward him, sword thrusting, and Styke barely parried the thrust with the blade of his knife. He charged forward, closing the distance, ramming his left fist into the dragoon’s face.

  She reeled back but did not fall, driving him off with blind swipes of her sword.

  They both froze, staring at each other, giving Styke his first good look at his opponent. She was tall—not as tall as he or Ibana, but nearly so—and she had wide shoulders that reminded him of Valyaine. She was broad-faced with quick eyes and her red hair shorn to a finger’s length. Her teal uniform had orange epaulets, which, Styke assumed, meant she was an officer. Over his shoulder he could hear Jackal urging the rear guard to finish off their Dynize attackers.

  The dragoon regarded him for another long moment, her eyes flicking to her fallen cavalry, before suddenly turning and sprinting toward the closest empty saddle. She pulled herself onto horseback with incredible dexterity and was galloping back toward the edge of the forest before Styke could take a dozen steps.

  He turned at the sound of a trumpet, watching as the Dynize cavalry disengaged from the Mad Lancers and began to retreat. The lancers, for their part, were obviously badly mauled, and he was not surprised when Ibana did not give the order to follow.

  He found the dragoon officer’s horse where he’d shoved it over. The poor creature thrashed in pain with one leg broken and probably several cracked ribs. Styke calmed it as best he could and covered its eyes with one arm before putting it out of its misery.

  He found Amrec and went back up the road in search of Ibana.

  “That was a timely charge,” he told Jackal as he passed.

  Jackal waved back at him. “The spirits wouldn’t forgive me if I allowed you to die charging an enemy army alone.”

  Styke found Ibana down in the valley taking stock of their—and the enemy’s—losses. She was on foot, kneeling over a half-dead Dynize dragoon, trying to get the man to talk through a mouthful of blood. She left him be, snorting in disgust, then turned to face Styke.

  “Find out where these bastards came from?” Styke asked.

  Ibana shook her head. “He’s not talking, nor is anyone still alive. We’ll take a few captives and work on them later. Maybe give them to Ka-poel and see what she can learn.”

  “Maybe,” Styke said. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of handing anyone over to Ka-poel. He wasn’t entirely sure what she could do or how she could do it, but it sounded … protracted. He did not like torture. “That retreat was organized. They weren’t willing to commit everything to the fight, it seems.”

  Ibana kicked at a body at her feet. “Damn it. We’ve sent scouts in every direction. How the pit did they sneak up on us like that?”

  “Send a few men to follow them,” Styke said. “Not too closely, but …” He glanced back toward the road, then in the direction they had retreated. “They came from the south, but they retreated to the west. Send a few men the way they came, too.”

  “Right.” Ibana stalked off, barking orders, while Styke stared down at the poor bastard she’d been interrogating. One of his arms was hanging by skin and he had three stab wounds through his chest. He’d be dead soon enough.

  He glanced up to the ridge, where well over a hundred of the new recruits lay dead or dying. He wondered about that Dynize officer. This ambush had felt strange. It had felt … personal. Were those blasted dragonmen behind it? Or was this something else?

  CHAPTER 35

  Michel was shaken awake by his own violent shivers. He lay on his back, staring up at blackness, a vague discomfort emanating from somewhere around the middle of his body. His first realization was that his entire body was trembling uncontrollably. No amount of effort could cease the shaking.

  His second realization was that he could not move. There was not, as far as he could tell, anything keeping him from moving—nothing across his chest or binding his arms. His body simply did not respond to the commands. He could breathe. He could shiver. He could open his eyes and move his head slightly from one side to the other, though he did not know if his vision was dark or if he was merely in a dark room. Only a well of calmness from deep within—one he did not know he possessed—kept him from spiraling into outright terror.

  He lay still for several minutes, attempting to get his bearings and gain control of his shivering body. He was unsuccessful in the first, and only mildly successful in the second. The problem, he realized, was that he was lying on something extremely cold. Cold and hard.

  He cleared his throat, wondering if he could speak, and heard someone—or something—stir in what sounded like a different room. Footsteps followed, then Michel could feel a presence just out of his peripheral vision. Although he was fairly certain he knew the answer, he spoke anyway: “Am I dead?”

  “You are not.”

  Michel let out a very soft sigh. The voice belonged to Emerald, which meant that Michel was likely lying on a slab in the bowels of the Landfall City Morgue. It explained the cold, as well as the darkness. It wasn’t his first choice of a place to wake up to, but it certainly wasn’t his last.

  As if in answer to his thoughts, the dim light suddenly grew brighter, illuminating the stone ceiling that Michel had been staring at. “How do you feel?” Emerald said, sitting down beside him.

  “I’m … not sure. I’m having trouble thinking, and I can barely move. I don’t feel pain. At least, I don’t think I do. My chest is very warm.”

  “That is your body attempting to feel pain. I injected a few drops of pure mala directly into your bloodstream.”

  “That explains a lot.” Michel had spent his fair share of time on the mala pipe—in between jobs, of course—but he’d never quite felt this kind of sensation. He wasn’t even aware mala could be injected like this.

  “It was also several hours ago. If I had done so recently, you would have some trouble opening your eyelids.”

  “Right. I’d rather not do this again.” Michel decided that freedom of movement might be preferred, even if it cost him a lot of pain. “How did I get here?”

  “You collapsed less than a block from my door. A passerby thought you were dead and reported the body. You’re lucky I was working, or one of my assistants might have just tossed you with the rest of the corpses.”

  Lucky. Right. “What was the damage?”

  “You were shot in the chest,” Emerald replied, his voice clinical. “The bullet lodged between your second and third
rib. It was not difficult to remove, but you had lost quite a lot of blood by the time you were found. You’ve been drifting in and out of consciousness for two days.”

  Two damned days. Michel wondered how much had happened in just that time. He had a thousand questions, but bit them back. In due time. “Have I been on this slab since then?”

  “Of course not. I had two of my assistants move you here about an hour ago so you wouldn’t get blood on a bed while I changed your bandages. We were just about to move you back, actually. Too much longer and you’ll catch hypothermia.” Emerald leaned over Michel, his tinted glasses sliding down to the end of his nose as he examined Michel with calm, surprisingly blue eyes. “While you’re here, you should try to eat something. I don’t want you throwing up in one of our beds either. Hold on, I think there’s still a little gruel left over from Horastia’s lunch.”

  Michel listened to Emerald’s footsteps recede, trying to come to grasp with what he would need to do to catch up on the last two days—and how he would deal with it all while recovering from a gunshot wound. He began to make a list in his head, shoving his way through the haze of the mala injection, trying to ignore the heat coming from his chest that, without the mala, would probably knock him out cold from the pain.

  Emerald returned a moment later and gently put a pillow beneath Michel’s head, then spoon-fed him a gruel whose flavor Michel could not place.

  “Has anyone noticed I’m gone?” Michel asked between swallows.

  “They have. Rumors have been spreading that you were shot and killed in this quarter, and that your body was tossed in the Hadshaw.”

  “Among who?”

  “The Dynize. The Blackhats, for their part, are confident you’re dead. They’d been shadowing you for days, waiting for you to be alone, and took your little expedition the other day as the perfect opportunity.”

  Michel licked his lips, trying to taste the gruel. Any sensation aside from the few this mala haze would allow him seemed suddenly important. “If rumors are spreading among the Dynize, they must have come from Forgula. No one saw me get shot except for Hendres. I wonder if she found me herself, or if Forgula told her where I’ve been staying.”

  “That, I don’t know.”

  Michel realized how tired just eating and talking was making him. He had to focus the thoughts, ask important questions. “The name Mara—is it Dynize?”

  Emerald seemed caught off guard. He paused with a spoon halfway to Michel’s mouth. “It doesn’t sound Dynize. Certainly not one I’ve heard.”

  “Then, what is it?”

  “Gurlish, maybe? Could be Stren.”

  Pit. Michel threw a handful of silent curses toward Taniel for not giving him any more clues to accomplish this mission. He tried to think clearly—there had to be a reason for not finding anyone named Mara among the Dynize. Had Michel remembered the name wrong? Was it some kind of surname, or a nickname? He tried to consider other options, and kept coming around to the fact that he could not fulfill his mission if he could not even find the informant. So what did he do next? Did he flee the danger of the city? Or embed himself deeper with the Dynize?

  “What else has happened since I was shot?” Michel asked. “Anything important?”

  “Another Dynize minister was killed in a bombing.”

  “The minister of rations? She died before I was shot.”

  “I said another. It was a minor minister—road engineering, or something like that. He was inspecting a bridge about three miles up the Hadshaw and was killed in an explosion.”

  “Shit,” Michel breathed. He wondered if it was another one of Yaret’s allies and was suddenly struck with a thought. “Do you have my clothes?”

  “Your shirt was a total loss. I have your jacket over here. Do you feel any nausea?”

  “I’m fine. Look in my jacket pocket for a list of addresses and bring it to me.”

  Emerald set the bowl aside and disappeared from Michel’s vision for a moment, before returning with the list and holding it where Michel could see. Michel squeezed his eyes closed, focusing his energy, and lifted his left arm as high as he dared. Emerald put the list between his fingers.

  Half the paper had been soaked through with Michel’s blood, making it impossible to read. But the top half was still intact, and Michel scanned his eyes across the addresses, trying to come up with some sort of pattern. “Kingston Street, where is that?” he asked.

  “Lower Landfall, north of the plateau.”

  “And Gorin Way?”

  “That’s on the northern rim of Greenfire Depths.”

  Michel licked his lips. There was a pattern to these addresses. He could feel it, but what it was remained just out of his foggy-brained grasp. “What do all of these addresses have in common?” he whispered.

  Emerald suddenly leaned over him, staring at the paper for a moment before sitting back down and offering Michel another spoonful of gruel. “They’re the locations of the bombings that have been going on the last two weeks.”

  Michel’s mouth fell open. “You’re kidding me.” He stared at the addresses, going over them again and again. He brought the paper closer to his eyes, noting a light pencil mark beside each address that he’d missed on his initial perusal. It was a number, seemingly nonsensical until he realized that it was the day of the month—this month and last—according to the Dynize calendar. Each day corresponded perfectly with each bombing at each address.

  This wasn’t just a list of addresses. It was the Blackhat hit list. Either Forgula had been given this so that she could keep herself out of harm’s way, or it was a copy of a list of instructions she’d given to the Blackhats. Maybe even both. Michel’s eyes had trouble focusing, his breathing growing strained.

  “You need to relax,” Emerald told him. “Otherwise you will set your healing back by days.”

  Michel tapped the paper with his thumb. There was an address right where the blood began to soak the paper, only half of which he could read. “What does this say?”

  Emerald took the paper from Michel, studying it a moment. “Seventeen Chancellor’s Court.”

  “And the number next to it?” Michel’s hand began to tremble from the effort of holding up his hand.

  This time, Emerald’s study took almost a minute. He got up, went to the gas lantern in the corner, and held the paper up at several different angles. “I think it says eleven.”

  “The eleventh.” Michel struggled against his own sluggishness to try to get to his feet. He barely managed to move his head off the pillow.

  “What is it?” Emerald asked.

  “Forgula is using the Blackhats to eliminate Sedial’s enemies,” Michel whispered. “That address is Yaret’s Household. What day is it?”

  “The ninth.”

  “Shit. I have to warn them.”

  “You’re not going to get very far in your condition. You might be able to walk in two or three days, but …”

  “Then you have to warn them,” Michel hissed.

  Emerald raised his eyebrows. “I don’t have to do anything. Certainly not something that will put me or my people in danger.” The words weren’t said unkindly, but his tone was firm.

  “Send a runner! Leave an anonymous note!”

  “I will have no communication on your behalf with the Dynize,” Emerald said. “I’m sorry, but it’s too much of a risk. Messengers can be recognized or followed. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t entirely convinced myself I’m not going to euthanize you and dump the body in the river so that you can’t be found here.”

  Michel stared at Emerald, fear creeping in through the haze of the mala. His shivering, which he’d gotten mostly under control, suddenly returned.

  Emerald continued with a sigh. “It is fortunate for you that I respect Taniel and Ka-poel more than I fear the Dynize. I will not chop you up while you sleep, I suppose, but I will also not do anything to risk any of my people. You can leave here once you can walk out on your own accord, but I will not involv
e myself in Dynize affairs.” Emerald clapped his hands, standing up. “You need to rest. My assistants will move you back to a proper bed now. I’m afraid they’re not used to carrying live bodies, so this may be slightly uncomfortable.”

  Michel didn’t answer, trying desperately to come up with a way to convince Emerald to warn Yaret about the bombing. Yaret would die if his house was destroyed. Perhaps Tenik, too. Children would be caught in the explosion and, if it was big enough, dozens of Yaret’s Household.

  It wasn’t until this moment that Michel realized he didn’t want to lose Yaret. Not just for the mission but because he’d been the most understanding master Michel had ever served.

  And he was a good man.

  Michel was still trying to come up with something to say when two of Emerald’s assistants put their hands beneath him—one under his shoulders, another under his feet—and counted down from three. They reached one and lifted, and all the warmth centered around Michel’s chest suddenly burst into a brilliant lance of pain that flashed lightning across his senses.

  Despite the pain, Michel could think of only one thing: Yaret was going to die in two days. And there was nothing he could do about it.

  CHAPTER 36

  Vlora spent the next twenty-four hours attempting to catch sight of Prime Lektor once more. It was, at the heart of it, a game—Vlora spent every waking hour stalking the streets with her hat pulled forward and her collar up, trying to find Prime Lektor without him catching sight of her.

  A dangerous game for certain, but it still felt like a game. She jumped at every Prime-shaped shadow and could barely sleep for worry. Prime was the key to all of this; she knew it in her gut. It seemed possible, maybe even probable, that he already knew where the godstone was. If she could follow him more carefully, he might lead her right to it.

  She gave up late the next day, worried that she was becoming too scattered in her search, and headed up to Little Flerring’s place in the hills. She found Flerring inspecting barrels of saltpeter as they were removed from an ox-drawn wagon. Vlora waited until the inspection was finished, then drew Flerring aside.