Cities and Thrones

by Carrie Patel

  “Are you prepared for this?” Farrah asked.

  Malone shrugged. “It can’t be that much worse than infiltrating smugglers’ nests. Or crossing Bricklayer territory.” It felt odd now, using that name. Even those memories from the last couple of weeks had begun to feel distant.

  “That’s not what I mean. If you do this, you’re going to have to kill Sato.”

  That was what Malone had avoided contemplating. And yet as Farrah said it, the realization crept up on her with a prickling of cold sweat. She had served Sato for over six months. She’d marched into Recoletta with him, and since then, she’d kept order in his name. He would have succeeded without her, but her presence at his side had given him legitimacy. The Municipal Police had been known as honest brokers before his revolution, and as one of the most senior surviving inspectors, she’d held the organization together.

  And she’d done it without asking Sato too many questions, because Recoletta had needed a leader and so had she. At the time, anyone had seemed like an improvement over the openly corrupt Ruthers.

  Killing Sato now meant that the last six months had been a crime in which she was complicit.

  Malone almost told Farrah that, yes, she had considered and made peace with the idea, or that she was not convinced it would be necessary, but she worried that hearing the fragile lie from her own lips would shatter what resolve remained to her.

  So she said nothing and waited for Salazar to return.

  The moon had achieved a few arduous inches by the time Salazar trotted back up the hill. Malone turned back toward the camp, where shadows scurried amidst the low hum of hurried activity.

  “No sense waiting around. They’ll be in place by the time we get to the east side of the building,” he said, jerking his head toward the bustle below.

  “Let’s go,” Malone said.

  “Wait.” Farrah took a step forward. “Should I come with you? Might help your story if Sato sees two of us...”

  Malone could hear both the hesitance and the sincerity of Farrah’s offer. “Stay here,” she said. “Sato will either believe me or he won’t. In the meantime, I need you to keep an eye on the Revisionists. Attrop’s defected, and I don’t know about Clothoe or the others. Just see that the farmers get their due when this is finished.”

  “You got it,” Farrah said, looking into the wet grass. “Just be careful.”

  Malone turned down the hill with Salazar, cutting through the camp. The farmers were busy organizing themselves into squads and passing around torches, barrels of pitch, and other cobbled-together flammables. They took no notice of the pair, which was just as well for Malone. She and Salazar passed through the camp and into the debris field beyond without once exchanging words with anyone.

  The Library loomed a mile away, an ominous fixed point as they made their slow circle. With its wild, broken angles and knotty humps and tufts of earth rising around it, it looked almost like a watchful, wounded beast. It seemed worthwhile to keep to a conservative distance and the cover of ancient, overgrown rubble until they were ready to make their approach.

  “There,” Salazar said. “Farrah’s eastern approach is just beyond that broken wall.” He pointed to a cleft in the darkness. He’d been quiet since descending from the hill, but Malone recognized the nervous edge in his voice from a hundred abrupt, pre-raid chitchats in the old days.

  They reached the wall and its sheltered nook in ten minutes. Malone looked back in the direction of the camp to the horizon smoldering. She could just hear the din of the farmers’ assault on the perimeter.

  “It’s started,” Salazar said. “You ready for this?” His forehead glistened in the moonlight.

  “I should be asking you,” Malone said.

  “Well, don’t. I might just change my mind.”

  They turned toward the Library, skulking through the shadows.

  The approach Farrah had mentioned was indeed narrow, which perhaps explained the broad passages between the sparsely strung razor wire and the few and well-spaced mounds of dirt that marked land mines. Moving carefully but steadily, Malone estimated they’d be able to make it to one shadowed wall of the Library in another ten or fifteen minutes.

  “Let’s go,” Malone said.

  Salazar hesitated, peering at the faintly silvered landscape ahead. “Remind me why we aren’t just approaching with a white flag.”

  “Because I wouldn’t count on anyone seeing it,” Malone said. “Not at this time of night and especially not after the soldiers’ earlier incursion. But Sato’s troops will know me up close. I just don’t want to give them any bright ideas about disarming me.”

  Salazar grunted and grumbled but said nothing, following her down the approach.

  They settled into a comfortable rhythm, ducking under wires and taking careful, exaggerated steps over suspicious patches of earth. Proceeding behind Malone, Salazar was careful to follow her every step, and his movements were just as quiet as hers. She took strange comfort in knowing that death would be swift and sudden if they made a mistake. And such an error was more likely to come from her miscalculation than his clumsiness.

  By the time she looked up from the winding, treacherous path to judge their progress, they were halfway to the Library. Flames still singed the distant horizon, and though the noise from the Library had grown louder, it was clear enough that it was focused on other sides of the building.

  However, she and Salazar were getting close enough that any guards stationed at their end would be able to spot them without too much difficulty. Malone concentrated on pressing forward, keeping low.

  She saw barricades built against the Library wall as she peeled through the last layers of Sato’s defenses. She stopped, holding a hand out behind her for Salazar to do likewise.

  Yet as she looked around, she saw no movement and no colors beyond the dimmed neutrals of brick and stone. Most of the firing seemed to be coming from the roof, anyway.

  Malone turned back to Salazar. “Let’s go,” she whispered.

  He pulled himself out of a painful-looking crouch. “Shouldn’t you have a gun to my head or something?”

  “Plenty of time for that later.” Malone looked back at the Library just in time to see a shadow crawling to the nearby corner. “Hurry!” she hissed to Salazar.

  They scurried over open ground and behind the barricade just as voices reached them from around the corner. Malone heard the steady deliberate footsteps of a patrol approaching.

  “Still nothing over here,” a man said. “They’re all throwing themselves against the wires on the other sides.”

  “Then this ought to be quick,” came another voice, a woman’s.

  They moved quickly, like two people ready to be done with their task. Malone took stock of their cover – it was little more than a low, broken wall that zigzagged around them on three sides. It should be just enough as long as the two weren’t thorough.

  Malone crouched on all fours, pressed against the barricade and facing the direction of the approaching patrol. She felt a sudden tug at her ankle and turned her head to see Salazar, pointing frantically at something.

  She looked. Halfway down the wall was a window nestled at ground level. The rest had been boarded up or buried in rubble or bricked over. But there, just a few dozen yards away, was the telltale shimmer of glass.

  Salazar tugged at her trouser leg again, as if she’d somehow failed to notice.

  Malone shook her head as emphatically as she dared. She held up a finger and pointed in the direction of the guards, who were just about to draw level with them on the other side of the barrier.

  “...don’t understand the point,” said the man.

  “They’ve got numbers,” the woman said. “They think they’ll make it through if they push hard enough.”

  “So will they?”

  There was a long silence. “We’re here to make sure they don’t.” Even as Malone heard the woman’s words, she heard the dull resignation behind them.

 
Malone had turned and was following Salazar now, creeping from one jagged section of wall to the next. The window grew ever closer.

  “But what if they do?” the male guard asked.

  “Enough,” the woman said. “If you want to know so badly, go ask Sato yourself.”

  That silenced the argument, and Malone had only the sound of their footsteps to follow as they marched through the gravel.

  “Stop,” said the man. “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?” the woman asked, turning to some point behind Malone.

  “There. Tracks.”

  Malone felt a curse form behind her lips.

  “Ours?” the woman asked.

  “Don’t think so. Look at the shape of that boot.”

  “Shit.”

  Malone felt as though the other woman might have been speaking for her. She turned back to Salazar just in time to see him kneeling, his arm wound back.

  Before she could stop him, he hurled something toward the far end of the barricade. It clacked against the stone.

  “There!” the woman said. She and her partner hurried back past Malone and toward the sound of the disturbance.

  As soon as their backs were turned, Salazar crawled toward the window, beckoning Malone with one arm. She had no choice but to follow.

  Salazar wedged his fingers under the pane and slid it open. Malone glanced in the direction of the two guards, but they were still nothing more than indistinct blobs in the darkness, moving steadily away. Salazar slid in through the window, and Malone followed him.

  She found herself on a tile floor next to a balcony. Lights shone from further down the hall, but there was no sign of activity nearby. Malone checked that the area around them was clear before easing the window shut behind her.

  “Which way?” Salazar asked.

  “Around and up,” Malone said. It was a hunch, but it felt right. They found the stairs and made their way upwards. Voices and lamplight spilled down the steps.

  Malone took a deep breath. “Here’s where I put a gun to your back,” she said.

  Salazar stopped and held his hands out behind him, saying nothing as Malone fastened cuffs around his wrists. The snapping, clinking metal sounded impossibly loud.

  She grabbed the back of his collar and eased him forward. “Time to see if this works.”

  He half-turned back to face her. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  She stopped. “For what?”

  “For giving us a chance. Fighting for us.”

  Something squeezed the breath out of Malone’s throat. “Come on.” Her voice was a warm rasp.

  Two of Sato’s guards found them as they reached the top landing.

  “Stay back! What are you doing here?” cried a young man, clean-shaven and ruddy-cheeked. He already had a bayonet raised and pointed at Malone.

  “Put that gun away, soldier,” Malone said, mustering as much authority as she could. “I’m still your chief of police.”

  The young man and his companion lowered their guns, chins trembling. “I’m so sorry, Chief,” said one. “I–”

  Just then, more soldiers spread into the hall from the adjacent rooms. From among them came a voice as hard as iron. “What’s going on in here?”

  The troops parted around General Covas, whose eyes were hollow but alert.

  Malone hadn’t expected to see Covas, but it meant that their plan of drawing Sato’s attention away from Recoletta had worked even better than she and the farmers had thought. Perhaps too well, depending on the extent of Covas’s loyalties to Sato. But the general had always been difficult to read, and her apparent exhaustion did not make matters any easier.

  Malone stepped forward, gripping Salazar even tighter. “I’m bringing him in to Sato.”

  Covas’s face registered a shifting spectrum of emotions – surprise, anger, mistrust – each delayed by microseconds. “How did you get in?” she finally asked.

  “The hard way. Let me see Sato.”

  Covas’s brows lowered over tired eyes. “He’s not expecting you.”

  “He’ll want to see me. And he’ll want to see my guest, Salazar.”

  The other woman’s eyes kindled with recognition, and she looked at Malone’s quarry. “Salazar...”

  “This could all be over soon,” Malone said, watching Covas’s expression. She thought she saw hope. Relief.

  Resignation.

  “This way,” Covas said. She led Malone and Salazar down the hall while the soldiers behind them murmured and looked on.

  Salazar said nothing as they marched down the hall, but Malone saw the hairs and gooseflesh rise along the back of his neck.

  “I’m surprised Sato brought you out here,” Malone said.

  Covas shot her a sharp look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Means he’s left Recoletta unprotected.”

  Covas turned her shoulder to Malone. “He has his priorities.” Her tone was carefully neutral.

  “Priorities that mean leaving the city he fought for undefended?”

  “Take it up with him yourself. I’m just trying to get us out of here in one piece,” Covas said, stopping in front of wide double doors. They were already open.

  Sato stood at a window, his profile lit up by the fires burning outside. Malone risked a glance through the nearest window and saw the ruined field in front of the Library alive with flames and running, raging, convulsing bodies.

  Sato only slowly peeled his attention away from the scene to glare at Malone. “Where have you been?”

  “Busy with the task you gave me among the farmers.” She looked him in the eye and forced herself not to blink or flinch.

  He did not look at her captive. “Then you must forgive my concern at your sudden and unexplained absence,” Sato said. “You left us rather short-handed in Recoletta.”

  Malone swallowed. “An opportunity presented itself. One of the commune representatives surfaced. I thought it would be a chance to learn what they were up to, but by the time I realized what was going on, we were on the move. I had to wait for a chance to act.”

  “And so you marched down here with a thousand farmers and gave me no warning?”

  Malone angled her head at the fire-bright window. “Forgive me. I thought a thousand farmers marching was a warning.”

  He uttered a short, grunting laugh.

  “Allow me to present Salazar. Of Meyerston.” Malone couldn’t see Salazar’s face, but the back of his neck was fever-hot and drenched with sweat.

  Sato’s eyes lighted, but he frowned. “I ordered you to kill him, not to bring him here.”

  The muscles in the back of Salazar’s neck twitched under Malone’s hand, but he didn’t react otherwise. “A battlefield martyr does you no good,” she said. “Not like a runaway. Or a traitor.”

  Sato was still and silent for several seconds. Finally, the corners of his mouth spasmed upwards. “Well done, Chief.”

  She saw approval, complacency, and trust in that smile. The doubts that she’d pushed to the back of her mind raced to the front, and she wondered whether she could go through with this. She released her grip on the back of Salazar’s collar as Sato’s gaze swiveled from her to some point behind her.

  “You may go, Covas,” Sato said.

  Malone heard the door snick shut behind her. Muted footsteps receded down the hall, and then all behind her was quiet. Only she, Sato, and Salazar remained.

  She was conscious of their isolation not as an absence, but as a presence in and of itself. The air seemed tangibly thick all of a sudden, and every movement – from the twitching of Salazar’s bound hands to the smooth, reptilian jerks of Sato’s head as he looked from her to Salazar and back to the scene outside – sent ripples and vibrations through the room. It felt as if the air had congealed around her right hand, freezing it at her side. Even if she could reach toward her gun, it seemed as though the movement would be impossible to hide.

  Sato grinned. “Don’t look so anxious. Those farmers
will wear themselves out on the barricades eventually,” he said. “As the troops on the other side already did. When that happens, I can send a smaller force to lob a few barrels of spreading fire into their camp to clear the rest of them out. And then, of course, we’ll put your prize to good use.” He nodded at Salazar.

  “And then back to Recoletta?”

  “Yes. Back to Recoletta and peace at last.” He looked back at her, smiling, and she felt her resolve flutter and waver all over again. It was an enticing promise. “We’ll still have the other cities to deal with, but they’ll be more cautious now. I’m beginning to doubt that Arnault has been entirely productive on that front, but perhaps we can put your skills to good use again. You’ve certainly proven full of surprises.”

  “I assure you, everything I’ve done has been for–”

  He waved a hand. “I’m not talking about your loyalties. I know you’re committed to Recoletta. It’s your resolve I was worried about.”

  Hairs rose along the back of her neck. “My what?”

  “Your will. Your determination. Your ability to do what’s necessary even when it’s unpleasant.” He looked to Salazar. “You just needed time and incentive.”

  Malone’s revolver was raised and pointed at Sato before she realized she’d even drawn it.

  He looked up, and he had just enough time to register the gun in her hand and wrinkle his brow in confusion before she fired.

  There was a crack, and one corner of Sato’s head erupted. He fell to the carpet, still.

  Salazar turned to look at her, his body tensed. Slowly, he let out a great, shuddering sigh.

  The door burst open behind Malone. Covas and four of her soldiers rushed in, their pistols drawn. They looked from Malone and Salazar to the prone body on the floor.

  Malone raised her hands – not in surrender but rather in placation. Salazar slowly turned next to her, seemingly afraid to do anything too quickly.

  “Give me one reason not to lay you down next to him,” Covas said.

  “The only reason you had to kill me is dead,” Malone said. “You’re not going to order your troops to burn this place down. Not when you can lay your arms down and walk out of here in one piece.”