Once Called Thief

by Lexel J Green

  “What's that?”

  “The rest of your money, pup. You asked for five hundred crowns. Less your debt, this the balance of it. One hundred and thirty crowns.”

  Stone stepped forward, into the light.

  “You said eight hundred last we talked.”

  “And you turned me down, remember? Where shall I put this?”

  Dirty money. But Stone found he no longer cared. He pointed to the ground in front of him. Mila nodded and set the money bag down.

  “What will you do now?”

  Settle the debt.

  Free his mother.

  Repay Mistress Yali for her kindness.

  Kill the warden.

  Buy the biggest sugar-dusted, lemon cream-filled chocolate roll he could afford.

  Punch Dak-Trur in the face (repeatedly) and get his money back, all eighteen crowns, one half-crown and four pennies of it.

  “I don't know,” he said. The chocolate roll now seemed a wasteful extravagance and he didn’t have the skills to fight Dak-Trur or kill Warden Fowley. As for Mistress Yali, he would pay her back before he left the city. Least he could do with all the money he’d earned.

  “Well, whatever you do, you’re now a boy of some considerable means. Enough coin there to keep you out of the mud for while. Besides, you’re independent, clever and more resourceful than any nine year-old I ever met. I reckon you could do anything if you put your mind to it. Anyway, I’m glad you’re alright.” She smiled at him. “Maybe, I'll see you around.”

  The Yafai turned to leave.

  Stone stared at the bag on the floor. How long would one hundred and thirty crowns last? What happened after that? He had no skills. Couldn’t read or write. Would he be forced back to working the mud? Back to a winter of scrapping and penny-pinching, of spending long nights in the ruins of his old life, wishing he hadn’t been so gods-damned righteous. Wrestling with the guilt. Everything around him a reminder of his mother and his failure to save her. What was his purpose now? How was he supposed to complete his list?

  Unless…

  “Wait,” he said. “I want... Could you…?”

  “What?”

  “Could you help me? Teach me how to fight? The Warden at Ash House. Fowley. A Mulai. He killed my mother.”

  “Did he now? Then I suppose I could get rid of him for you. One less Mulai in the world…”

  “No. I want to be the one who does it.”

  “Ah, so you want to get into the revenge business? That's a serious commitment. Easy to say you want to kill a man. But it’s different when it comes to striking the blow. Forgive me, pup. But you don’t look like the murdering type.”

  “I don’t know what I am anymore. Or who I should be. But I’ve got nothing to lose now. Nowhere to go. That bastard Fowley took everything from me. Maybe you could take me with you? Teach me how to fight? Because all this…” Stone looked around his basement home. “It means nothing without my mother. All this was for her. Everything I did was for her. She told me to stay on the right side of the law, but look where it’s got me! I’m now ready to fight back. Whatever it takes. However long it takes. But I need help…”

  Mila blew out a breath. She shook her head. “Do you know what you’re asking? This’ll cost you. And more than you might care to pay. If I take you with me, I'll need something from you in return.”

  “Anything. The Mulai destroyed my father; killed my mother…”

  “Careful, pup. You don't know what you're promising. I’ll need your loyalty. Your very heart and soul. You’ll have to swear a blood oath to serve the Yafai above all others. Life won’t get easier, it’ll get harder. You might not even last the distance.”

  “I’ll take my chances. It can't be worse than this.”

  39. THE BLOODY TENTH

  “IS THAT EVERYTHING?”

  Zan-Naka Mindhan leaned back in his chair in the small and squarish room he used as an office. Lokke and Roon-Kotke stood in front of the Caster-Captain’s old wooden desk, having just explained to him about the Kajjon bridge, the fortress, the contingent of Yafai and the army of gromes. Daode looked on, looking less sour-faced than usual, a half-smile hanging lopsided on his lips.

  “Yes, sir,” said Roon-Kotke. “That’s everything.”

  “The Yafai are already on the move,” Lokke added. “We need to get a message to the Mulai immediately.”

  Lokke felt on edge. He had resumed his disguise as Ember Cobb, reminding Roon-Kotke to keep up the charade. Too risky to reveal himself. Who knows what the Captain might do.

  “The Briar might in danger,” he said. “Or Fardock. Perhaps even Fora Dezier or Ocos.”

  Zan-Naka raised his eyebrows. “From an army of gromes?”

  “It sounds impossible, I know.” Lokke adjusted the itchy strip of cloth wrapped around his head that now served as his eyepatch. “But that’s what I saw.”

  “Just like you said you saw a real-life Kajjon on your previous mission, when nobody else did? Even though the grey-skins have been gone for hundreds of years?”

  “Lor saw the gromes too, Captain,” said Roon-Kotke. “We saw the pens they were kept in. We saw, uh, Ember here take control of one. We were chased by a pack of them as we made our escape. I’m afraid the threat is all too real.”

  “What about a Weapon? Did you see anything that looked like a Weapon?”

  “No, sir. Just the gromes. Hundreds of them. The Yafai who took us prisoner said we wouldn’t find an old Weapon. Said it didn’t exist. I believe them. For if the Yafai had a Weapon in their possession, why would they have built a monstrous legion? They could simply burn the Briar like the Mulai put Yafnagar to the flame.”

  “And you believe a Yafai? They are liars and cheats...” Zan-Naka glanced up at Lokke. “They are men with a dark past who cannot be trusted…” The Captain returned his gaze to Roon-Kotke. “Look at Hannar-Ghan. He fooled you. Fooled us all. I don’t yet know how I’m going to explain this security breach to the High Lord…” Zan-Naka sighed. “You should have let the traitor live, you know. We could have interrogated him. There might be more of his kind lurking in other legions.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. He…”

  “He betrayed you. You weren’t thinking straight.” The Captain looked almost sympathetic. “I understand what you did, Corporal. You wanted revenge. That is a powerful motivator, is it not?” Lokke nodded in agreement. After all, revenge had kept him going against the spouters, helped him stay optimistic when they had been trapped in that Yafai cell. “So what’s done is done,” said the Captain. “Unless… Do you think he might have survived?”

  Lokke remembered the sight of charging gromes, so close he could see the anger in their eyes, hear the snorts and snarls as they ran. Gods, if they were allowed to run free in the Briar…

  “Unlikely, sir,” Roon-Kotke replied.

  “Captain,” Lokke said. “The Mulai must be warned about the gromes. Every moment we waste standing here puts the Empire and its citizens in danger. I will go to the Briar personally if you will allow—”

  “Gods, no.” Zan-Naka waved Lokke to silence. “You are needed here. Your contract is here. We have rules… Daode?” Zan-Naka’s assistant stepped forward, chin up, uncharacteristically confident. “See that a message is sent to the Watcher post-haste. Tell him of this Yafai plot and describe what Caster Cobb has seen. Let them do with the information as they see fit.”

  “Yes, sir.” Daode opened a notepad and began to write.

  “This is of the utmost importance. Letters should also go to the Sentinel and Su-Zo,” Lokke added.

  Zan-Naka bristled at the suggestion. “Who’s in charge here, Mulai? You or I?” Lokke winced. He’d overstepped the mark. “The Watcher is the Defender of Mulai. He is Supreme Commander of the Imperial Legions. He will know what to do with your story, true or not. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?”

  “No, Captain.”

  “Excellent. Then be assured that Daode will take care of it.” The Captai
n shifted his gaze to Roon-Kotke. “Corporal, I believe I’ve heard enough. Time to get back to our work here. I assume the gate wasn’t compromised?”

  “Sir?”

  “Can we can still use it? You didn’t blow it up at the other end?”

  “No, sir. We didn’t blow anything up, as per your instructions.”

  “Apart from a keep,” Lokke said.

  “You blew up a keep?” Zan-Naka raised his eyebrows again.

  “A small one,” said Roon-Kotke. “Technically Ember here blew it up. But we wouldn’t have been able to return if we hadn’t. The gate is intact. I’m sure of it.”

  Zan-Naka Mindhan looked stern. “It had better be. If that gate leads to Kajjon as you suggest, then there might be more of worth to discover. But for now, you are dismissed.”

  “Yes sir.” Roon-Kotke nodded. “Thank you, sir. Come on, Ember.”

  The Corporal turned to leave. Lokke followed his lead.

  “Not you, Mister Cobb. I’d like you to stay.”

  “Me?” said Lokke.

  “You.”

  Lokke glanced at Roon-Kotke, who shrugged back. As the Corporal left, Lokke stood uneasily, wondering what Zan-Naka had on his mind. It was no secret that the Captain didn’t like him. Didn’t like most Mulai. As a separatist, Zan-Naka believed in a free Ocoscona, unshackled from Imperial rule. Lokke had hoped that his efforts since coming to Refu Ruka had eroded some of the man’s distrust. Only a few gates remained until he could finish his contract and return to the Briar.

  Daode closed the door.

  Zan-Naka leaned back in his chair. “You look nervous, Cobb.”

  “Just tired, sir. It’s been a long day.”

  “And an illuminating one. I won’t keep you long. Now, when we first met I told you that I like to know the capabilities of everyone under my command — their strengths and their weaknesses, the experiences that have shaped them into the casters they are today. I didn’t know much about you when you arrived, but now I do.” He pulled out a thick, leather-bound book and laid it gently on the desk, smoothing the cracked cover with the palm of his hand. “There are a few gaps here and there, however. So I have a few questions.”

  “Of course,” Lokke said.

  “Excellent.” Zan-Naka smiled and undid the black string holding the book closed. He opened it and flicked through the pages. “Now, let’s see. You are Ember Cobb, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of Meillo, near Gorah-Tei?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Zan-Naka continued. “And until recently, you were a Caster-Captain in The Old Hundredth, serving under the traitor Lokke de Calvas?”

  Lokke resisted the temptation to defend himself. So he simply nodded.

  “I don’t suppose you know where the renegade Colonel can be found?”

  “No idea,” Lokke lied.

  “A shame. I hear the bounty for his capture is quite the sum. A life-changing amount. But we’re hardly likely to encounter him out here, are we? Moving on… Your father was Andreas Cobb, is that correct?”

  “Yes.” Lokke replied. The Captain had certainly done his research.

  “Your grandfather’s name was Orey?”

  “That’s right.” Orey Ember Cobb if memory served. He’d died when he and Ember had been kids. Ember had been named after him. “How did you—”

  “The same Orey Cobb who served in the Bloody Tenth and who fought at Caranhan during the Annexation?”

  “I think so.” Lokke didn’t know the specifics of the Cobb service record beyond that being a legionnaire was the family business. “I’m not sure about the legion he served in. What’s all this about?”

  Something didn’t feel right.

  “You are Ember Cobb?”

  “Yes, I’ve already told you that.”

  Something definitely didn’t feel right.

  “I just want to be certain.” Zan-Naka tapped the page in front of him. “For the files, you understand.”

  “You already have the letter from Su-Zo that states as much. I gave it to you when I arrived.”

  “Lord Su-Zo…”

  Lokke sighed. He hated pedants. Detested paper-pushers and bureaucrats. Throw politicos in there while you’re at it. “Lord Su-Zo then,” he said. “You have his letter. It tells you everything you need to know. In black and white.”

  “So, just to confirm…” Zan-Naka picked up his pen and opened the lid of the inkwell on his desk. “You are Ember Cobb?”

  “Gods man, yes!”

  The Captain dipped the nib of the pen into the inkwell. “And you’re named after your grandfather?”

  “Yes!” Lokke shuffled uneasily. “How many times are you going to ask me that?”

  Zan-Naka wrote something down on the page in front of him. Slowly and with care. Then he blotted the ink and closed the book, looping the black string around it.

  “Good. Then that’s all I need to know.”

  “So I can go?”

  “Not yet. There’s just one more thing. Do you know much about your grandfather’s career as a caster?”

  “My grandfather?” Lokke’s grandfather had been a carpenter, like his own father. The career of Orey Cobb was a mystery. Ember had certainly never spoken of him. Lokke had heard no heroic stories. No tales of daring-do. “No. I hardly know anything.”

  “Then let me enlighten you… As I said previously, he served in the Bloody Tenth, a legion long since disbanded by the Sentinel and forgotten. Most people don’t know about the Tenth. But I do… The last battle they fought was at Caranhan during the Annexation. The name probably doesn’t mean anything to you. It’s a small town. Pretty. Used to have a grand manse on top of the hill — white-painted, red-roofed, with six soaring pillars. It’s not there any more. The Tenth had orders to destroy any symbol of the Ocosconan elite, so they torched the old building and watched it burn. I’ve heard it said that the fire raged for a day and a night, the flames visible for miles around.”

  Zan-Naka Mindhan fixed Ember with a hard stare.

  “My grandfather was inside that manse.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t a garrison or a headquarters,” the Captain continued. “It was a field hospital for wounded legionnaires. Its marble entrance hall lined with beds for the poor souls injured at Hojan and Zo-Jagar, where the fighting was fiercest. My grandfather, Zan-Ghan Mindhan, was one of them, wounded in the leg, gripped by a fever. Bed-ridden, I understand. Unable to flee when the Tenth bombarded the old house with Fura. He burned alive with twenty-three other casters.”

  “Why are you telling me this? Surely you can’t blame me for the actions of Orey? That was a hundred years ago!”

  “Orey Cobb commanded the squad at Caranhan. He gave the order to fire. Your grandfather murdered mine.” Zan-Naka stood, chair sliding back on the ancient stone. “It is an injustice I can finally balance.”

  “Now, hold on.” Lokke backed away. “You’ve got this all wrong. I had nothing to do with that. I’m not really Ember Cobb…”

  “But you just said you were. I asked you three times and you did not deny it.” The Caster-Captain picked up the letter Su-Zo had given him and held it up. “The High Lord also says you are Ember Cobb. It’s right here, as you say, in black and white.”

  “I admit that now looks bad. But I can explain. It’s a hell of a story…”

  “I don’t really care,” said Zan-Naka with a smile. “Daode, if you please…”

  Before Lokke could turn, he felt the butt of a lance jam into the small of his back, moments before a buzz of Ampa pulled every muscle in his body taut, his back arching like an old longbow flexing in the draw, bending, tightening, old bones clicking, until he thought his spine might shatter under the strain.

  The charge held him there for a brief moment, perhaps no longer than a heartbeat, but it felt like a hundred of them passing. And just when Lokke thought he could take no more and he opened his mouth to scream, the Ampa let him go and he found himself lo
osed into darkness, like a flaming arrow fired into the night.

  40. THE LIST

  EVEN AFTER SIX YEARS, the Firebird Rising in Ocos still smelled of pipe smoke, stale beer and fish; its floor tiles still sticky with beer. But there had been some changes since Stone had last walked through its doors. The candles had gone, replaced by blackiron longlamps; while a beefy bruiser with a bushy beard now guarded the door to the boozer’s back room.

  As the door to that room swung open, Stone still expected to see the skull-painted Rook sat at the long wooden table, stylishly dressed, counting coins into his dark wooden box. But the old fencer was nowhere to be seen. A young man sat there instead, lounging in the Rook’s grand leather chair, blond hair still spiked, but now streaked with black, a scar across his pockmarked cheek. Dak-Trur looked like he owned the place. According to rumour, he did.

  “Well now,” Dak said with a grin, as Stone approached the end of the table. “If it ain’t little Stone, all grow'd up and bald as a blueshank egg. What the Hells happened to you scrapper?”

  Stone stuffed the rest of a sugar-dusted, lemon cream-filled chocolate roll into his mouth before replying.

  “I’ve spent some time away,” he said, wiping sugar from his chin. He noted that Dak wasn’t alone. He recognised Mutter standing at the bully’s shoulder, older, probably not wiser, sandy hair tied back in a short ponytail. The other bludger he didn’t recognise — a bruiser, bald-headed, missing several of his teeth. He wondered what had happened to Mouth.

  “Where's the Rook?”

  “Retired,” said Dak. “This is my place now. These are my boys. So… What brings you back? You here to sell? After all this time? I give you fair warning. I ain't as soft-headed as your pal the Rook used to be. I ain’t a charity neither. No special favours offered. Got a business to run, see?”

  “No,” said Stone. “I’ve got nothing to sell. That life is behind me now. Actually, I've come to settle a debt.”

  Dak nodded. “That’s mighty honourable of you. Of course, if you owed the Rook, then you now owe me.”