Stone took another step back.
“There's nowhere to run, Mister Hannar. The law demands that you fulfil—”
“Screw the law.”
“Mister Hannar. I know this has come as a shock. But you really have no other choice. If I'm forced to restrain you, it will also incur a small fee.”
The door opened behind him and Stone turned to see a warder standing there. Big fella. Muscled. Hair ragged as an old mop.
“Trouble Warden?”
Stone took a step forward, positioning himself between the three men, making sure he was beyond their immediate reach. His eyes flicked around the room, looking for a way out. There was no other door bar the one he’d come through, an exit now blocked by the bulk of Fowley’s warder. Paintings lined the walls either side of him, the largest a view of the Briar, the towering Hourglass fortress at the centre, wreathed in cloud.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” growled the bailiff as he slowly rounded the table. His lance wasn’t primed. Obviously didn’t think that a nine year-old boy was any threat. And in terms of fighting, he was right. But as far as running was concerned…
“Of course I’ll submit to you,” Stone said at last, putting his hands in the air. “But you'll have to catch me first!”
He sprang towards the windows as the big bailiff reached for him, gaining a few extra moments.
“Oi!” hollered the warder in the doorway.
“Gods alive, hold him!” the Warden yelled. “He—”
Stone closed his eyes, not knowing quite what was going to happen. He put his arm up in front of his face and dived through the left-most window, out towards the river, the glass shattering into a thousand pieces around him.
32. SURROUNDED BY LIARS
LOKKE DE CALVAS TOOK off his eyepatch and peered through the small grille in the cell door. The thick wooden door with huge iron bands across it. The thick, triple-locked, immovable door that kept him, Roon-Kotke and Lor-Qui from escaping.
Even an optimist would have struggled to stay positive. The cell walls were thick stone. The only window was barred, looking out over an empty roadway below that stretched into the distance. The ceiling (also fashioned from stone) was three times as high as he was, bare and featureless. Banging on the door didn't attract attention, nor did feigning illness to attract a guard. There were no guards. Nowhere to hide. Nothing to use as a makeshift weapon. Nothing to sit on bar three bits of wood masquerading as a bench. Not as bleak as Janos Crick’s new Pillars perhaps. But as jail cells went, it was simply and depressingly effective.
Their only hope of rescue had been Junn. But judging by the rope they’d seen, the boy had made an ill-advised break for freedom. Lokke didn’t think much of his chances. By now, Junn was either dead, or he soon would be. Roon-Kotke had listened to the news without speaking, sat in a corner of the cell, staring at his boots, still reeling from two betrayals in one day.
“It seems,” he muttered, an edge of malice in his voice. “That I’m surrounded by liars…”
Lokke winced. He knew what was coming.
“It turns out,” the sullen Caster-Corporal said, chucking a stone across the cell, “that my closest friend is not a street kid from Ocos, but a Yafai spy. A terrorist. The antithesis of everything I hold dear. While the Mulai… Who I was just starting to trust with my life…”
“Roon,” said Lokke apologetically. “Look, I—”
“Nuh-uh.” The Caster-Corporal waved him to silence. “Our mercenary Mulai…” he continued with a sneer, “is nothing of the sort. Now revealed to be a big-shot Caster-Colonel. Lokke de Calvas no less. A man marked Enemy of the Empire, with a bounty on his head so weighty it would clear my debts twice over.” Roon laughed to himself. “Know what? It wouldn’t surprise me if Lor here suddenly announced that he was the reincarnation of an Ocamor. Arano or Nemet. A bloody god of light and magic reborn, come to burn us all to ashes. I mean, how could this day possibly get any worse!?”
Lokke stared down at the stone floor.
“I’m not an Ocamor,” Lor-Qui said. “If that helps.”
Pulling off his grey headscarf, Lokke stuffed it into the pocket of his trews. He stepped forward, chin up, defiant. “Worse, you say?” He let out a breath. “You want worse? How about I ram your head into this wall?”
“What?” Roon-Kotke shuffled backwards into the corner. “No!”
“Then snap out of it,” Lokke shouted, his patience snapping. “You’re angry. I get it. I’ve been where you are. So gods-damned angry that I didn’t care whether I lived or died; so angry I wanted to lash out at anybody and anything, hoping it might dull the pain that raged inside me.” He drew in a deep breath. “Well, it doesn’t. And feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help get us out of here. That is our most pressing concern. I’m sorry about Hannar-Ghan. But I’m not sorry that I lied to you. As you say, I’m an Enemy of the Empire. I had no other choice.”
Lor-Qui wandered over to look out of the window, no doubt keen to avoid becoming entangled in a spat between officers.
Roon-Kotke continued to glower at the floor. “Why should I believe anything you say?”
“I don’t care either way, Roon. But I’m on your side. Su-Zo Zozadhan sent me here personally and I have a vested interest in these missions succeeding. I might have lied about who I am, but you’ve seen what I am, seen me fight for your cause. And I’m still here. Still fighting. I didn’t get us locked up in this cell.”
“You’re still a traitor.”
“Unjustly accused,” Lokke countered. “The real traitor sits at the heart of the Empire and watches from the Eye. He’s what keeps me going. What drives me on. He’s the man who killed my wife; the man who took everything away from me. The man who fears that I’ll come back for him. Finish what I started. That’s why there’s a price on my head. He’s trying to stop me revealing the truth of what happened during the election.”
“The truth? What is the truth?”
“That I was winning. The Glass, the Spire of Light, the Needles, Ocoscona and Karonne had all declared for me. I was to be the nineteenth Watcher of Mulai! Until Tydek Mordume stole it away from me in the night; pushed my wife from the top of the Eye; chased me out of the city like a common criminal. So if you’re thinking you’ve had a bad day, believe me, I’ve had worse.”
“Does the Captain know?”
“That I’m Lokke de Calvas? No.” Lokke held his hand out, fingers brushing over the rough stone, looking for weaknesses, finding none. “And should we ever get out of here, back to Refu Ruka, you can’t tell him. It has to be our secret.”
“Why?”
“Because if you want me to stay on your squad, I need to be Ember Cobb. Not the man hunted by every Justice and caster in the Empire.”
Lokke let out a long breath. It felt good to tell someone; good to get the words out; good that somebody would listen and, in some small way, understand.
“So who’s Ember Cobb?” Roon-Kotke asked. “Just a name you made up?”
“No. He was real.” The old sadness in Lokke swelled. “He was a good friend of mine. Best friend. Fought by my side countless times. Saved my life more than once. Lost his wife too. Killed when the Yafai bombed a supper house in the Briar. Wrong place at the wrong time.” Lokke wondered whether Mila had been involved. “Ember was never quite the same after that.”
“What happened to him?”
Lokke lowered his head. “He died.”
“Bet he didn’t betray you though, did he? I’ve known Han — or whatever his name really is — since the Testing. Six years! We ran the course together. I thought I wouldn’t finish it, but he helped me to the end. Sacrificed first place to do it. I wouldn’t be a caster if it hadn’t been for his kindness that day. But now… Now, it’s got me wondering why he did it. Whether it was just to get me to trust him. A ploy to gain an ally; to be accepted. I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I don’t know who to trust any more.”
Lokke l
et out a long breath. “Look. You won’t want to hear this, but right now, Han doesn’t matter. Right now, this cell is real. The Yafai are real and we seem to have stumbled onto some grand plot that threatens the Empire. It’s why we need to get out of here. We need to find out what these Yafai are up to. And then we need to get home.”
“Home?” Roon-Kotke shook his head. “Look around you, Mulai. We aren’t going anywhere. It’s over. This is where we die.”
“Uh, Corporal?” Lor-Qui’s voice from the window. “You should see this.”
“Let the bloody Colonel look. He outranks me. He should be in charge.”
Lokke thought about arguing with Roon-Kotke, threatening him again. But he decided to leave him wallowing in his misery. At least for the time being. After all, the Corporal was right about one thing. They weren’t going anywhere.
“Alright, what is it?” Lokke asked, joining Lor-Qui at the window. He had to stand on tiptoe just to see out through the bars.
“There,” said the combat-tech, pointing down at the road. “See them?”
A waggon rumbled across the huge paving slabs below, six gromes standing in the back, inert as if frozen in time, armoured with huge metal plates, swords the size of gate posts, shields big as Yarborough tables. Another waggon followed it. Then another and another, each one stacked the same. Twenty-four gromes became thirty, became thirty-six and then forty-two. Lokke gripped the iron bars, squeezing tightly. This was an army of monsters. Tamed somehow. Obedient. Nothing like the wild animals they’d encountered in the forest.
As he watched, the waggons kept rolling, thirteen of them now, a convoy that stretched off into the distance. Lokke rattled the bars. They’d come looking for a Weapon. They’d found something equally sinister. Worse, wherever this legion of beasts was bound, he had no way of stopping them.
***
Hannar-Ghan watched the last of the waggons roll out of the fortress gate, its cargo of gromes as still as heavily-armed, armour-plated statues.
“You did it,” he said, as the gate began to close. “You made the Kajjon machine work. I didn’t believe it was possible.” The gate closed with a clunk. “What are you going to do with them?”
“The plan hasn’t changed,” said Mila, checking off the last waggon in a notebook. “In fact, since Tydek Mordume became the Watcher of Mulai, it now has a far greater chance to cause the sort of chaos I envisaged.”
“How?”
The Yafai captain closed the book and tucked it into her coat pocket. “Neither the ‘how’ or the ‘what’ are important. They are concerns for brighter minds than ours. As soldiers in this war, we do not need to know. Better that way.”
Hannar-Ghan nodded. The gromes were just a small part of a much larger plan, a wheel within a wheel, all leading towards the Velta. Only a few knew what the Velta meant. Fewer still what it entailed. But one thing was certain — the Yafai had been working towards it for over a hundred years.
Mila placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s good to see you, pup.”
“You know I don’t like it when you call me that,” Hannar-Ghan grumbled.
The Yafai laughed. “And that’s why I do it. Gets a rise out of you. Stirs your defiance. And that’s what gives you power…” She looked him up and down, nodding appreciatively. “You’ve come a long way from that frightened little boy I met all those years ago, hiding away in a basement, holding his lance backwards. Now look at you. I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”
Hannar-Ghan shook his head. “But I failed my mission.”
“Hardly. You brought us De Calvas. Do you know how many of our plans he’s ruined over the years? How many of us he’s killed? You should get a medal . In fact, here…” Mila held out Lokke’s sword. “Take this. A souvenir to commemorate your victory over the Empire’s greatest caster. He certainly won’t be needing it again.”
“Uh, thank you.” Hannar-Ghan took the old blade, not entirely sure what he was going to do with it. He had no use for a barbarian weapon. In an age of oconics, it belonged in a museum. But at the same time, he didn’t want to refuse the gift. Not if Mila saw some significance in it. He owed her everything; in her debt up to his eyeballs. Seemed like he was always in debt to somebody.
Ember saved your life…
“What about the others?” he asked, pushing away thoughts of any obligation to the traitorous Mulai.
“The others are of no use to us.”
“You’re not going to kill them?”
“They’ve seen too much.”
“Can’t we just…”
“You think we should spare them?” Mila looked confused. “That doesn’t sound like the Stone I remember. The one who railed against the injustice of the Empire. Has working with the blue coats made you soft?”
“No. Of course not. It’s just…”
“Your loyalties appear conflicted.”
“No,” he said, firmly. “Keep the Mulai. I’m no friend to him. But the others… They’re good people. They’ve done nothing wrong. We could let them go.”
Mila shook her head. “I know you’ve spent a long time amongst the Fuerzi-Kri. So it’s natural that you’ve developed feelings for some of the casters you’ve fought beside. How could you not? But they’ve seen our faces. They’ve seen the gromes. We set your Corporal and his casters free and they will take that information back to Ocoscona. Back to Mulai. It’s too great a risk. We cannot jeopardise the project.”
“But they wouldn’t. They are separatists. They hate the Mulai too. Given the choice, they might fight alongside us. Killing those who believe as we do seems counterproductive. Narrow-minded.”
“That’s not my call to make. Nor is it yours. We do what we are told. We play our part in a game that started before you and I were even born. We can’t risk the Empire finding out about the gromes. And we don’t take prisoners. You know that as well as I do.” Mila slapped him on the back. “Forget ‘em. Your mission at Refu Ruka is now done. We’ll destroy the gate you used to get here and let the Ocosconans think your squad was lost. Make it all neat and tidy. Time to go home, pup. Report to the quartermaster. He’ll find you a ride back to the gate.”
“But… This isn’t right.”
“It’s what you signed up for…”
Is it? I'm not the same person anymore. How could I be? I've been away for six years. I've seen things. Met people. They have changed me; reminded me of who I used to be… Who my mother wanted me to be.
“The Ocosconans are in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mila continued. “I’m sorry. We don’t have a choice. As soon as we’re finished here, they will be executed.”
33. YOU CLEVER, CLEVER BOY
JUNN-KRI LISTENED TO the sound of retreating boots and tried not to sneeze.
A feather tickled his nose.
The weight of the dead bird was making it difficult to breathe. He couldn't see anything and the smell... Arano's arse! The smell was bad enough that he was on the verge of vomiting. But those men in grey hadn’t found him. Thanks to Roon-Kotke’s lessons in misdirection, they believed he’d climbed down to the ground and made a run for it. The bird had saved him. Nobody had wanted to go near it and Junn-Kri didn't blame them. He lay there for what seemed like an age, still as the dead, listening for footsteps or the sound of someone moving. Then he heaved the bird up and slid out from underneath it, slowly in case he'd missed something.
But the room was empty.
Gloriously, wonderfully empty.
Junn rolled off the table and onto the floor. He felt a surge of relief. He was alive. But what in the Seven Hells was he going to do next? Rescue Roon-Kotke and the others? Whoever those casters were, he couldn't fight them on his own. In the room beyond, one of the creatures snarled and banged on the door of its cell.
Another crazy idea popped into his head.
***
Even after eight years, Hannar-Ghan remembered the way to the quartermaster. Along the corridor to the central stairway, down three flights and
then straight on, through the courtyard, second door on the right.
They were in Kajjon. He’d known it the moment the sun had risen over the road bridge. What were the odds of gating here? To the one place that would test his allegiance; force him to choose a side? He’d tried to steer Roon-Kotke away from following the long Kajjon road. Told him that they shouldn’t have come. Would have worked too, if it hadn’t been for Ember Cobb. Or Lokke de Calvas, to give him his real name. He had suspected the Mulai hid a secret. But he had no inkling it might be so grand. A renegade Caster-Colonel, no less! And right under their noses. No wonder Mila was pleased.
As Hannar-Ghan descended the stairs, he felt a knot in the pit of his stomach. What was it? Guilt? Mila had told him the day would come when he would need to betray those he spied upon. She had warned him not to get too close, to remember his purpose, honour his pledge. But after six years in Ocoscona, he had dared to think the Yafai had forgotten him. That he might let his promise to them slide in favour of the life he’d dreamt of since he was a boy.
He patted his pocket, feeling the familiar outline of the toy caster he kept there. It sparked a memory of his mother and that night when she gave up her freedom to save it for him.
Would she be proud of the man he’d become?
Would she agree with the choice he’d made?
I’m just doing what you told me to, mama. Being hard as stone.
How was he supposed to choose? Back then it was easy to keep his feelings in check. Apart from his mother and Mistress Yali, he had no friends. Didn’t need to worry about keeping ‘em sweet. It was little scrapper Stone against the world, fighting the tides, the mud, Dak-Trur, the warden at Ash House. Now things were different. More complicated. He was bound by a tangle of loyalties he couldn’t quite unpick.
For Mila had saved him from the mud, taken him away from Ocos and shaped him into the soldier he’d always wanted to be. Gave him something to fight for too. He only knew fragments of the Yafai’s plan. The ‘Velta’ they called it. An old Kajjon word. No idea what it meant. Never asked. His desire for revenge against those who’d wronged him aligned with theirs and it had burned bright in him during five long years of training. Without Mila, he wouldn’t be standing here.
Once Called Thief Page 21
