Great Chief (Chains of Honor, Book 4)

by Lindsay Buroker

  Yanko and Jhali walked through the cavernous hallways, half looking for rooms they could claim for themselves and half taking the tour. They had already passed the kitchens—four of them—and though they weren’t as well-supplied as would be typical, Yanko had found a huge burlap bag of sunflower seeds left behind because they were leaking through a slit. He’d pocketed a couple of handfuls, hoping Kei hadn’t gotten lost in the city and would find him again soon.

  He hadn’t attempted to convey to the bird where he would go after the dragon battle because he hadn’t expected their forces to get into the city so easily. According to Zirabo, Tynlee had used her mind powers to convince a lot of the Swift Wolves blocking the route to flee because vile Turgonians were taking advantage of the turmoil and invading Nuria. Never mind that there’d only been one vile Turgonian setting off explosives in the city. Apparently, the rumors about the dragon’s death and the approach of the powerful mage who’d been responsible had also sent people running.

  Fortunately, Yanko was no longer glowing. His skin continued to tingle and feel tight, as if he’d used one of his grandmother’s fancy callus-annihilating pumice stones all over his body, but even that feeling was fading.

  The scimitar still illuminated a room with the power of a sun when he drew it, but only a little light seeped out if he kept it sheathed. It was a magic sword, at least, so nobody would think that glow was odd. Glowing people, on the other hand, were strange.

  As they walked and walked, Yanko realized how large the palace was. He wondered if it would be hard to guard it, as it sprawled over ten city blocks. He had never been to the Great City in his youth, but he had no trouble imagining hundreds of guards patrolling the palace and even more maids and butlers and other servants working on the inside. Had Zirabo grown up here? Yanko would have to ask.

  Jhali stopped to touch a bust that depicted the first Great Chief. It was carved from marble and likely worth a lot of zekris, though Yanko had seen numerous empty pedestals and guessed some of the more obviously valuable artwork had been pillaged.

  “You still think my log home counted as a palace?” Yanko asked, waving to the high ceilings and broad hallways.

  “I’ll admit it lacked the magnitude and grandeur of this place,” Jhali said, “but I grew up in a two-room shack and slept next to the stove.”

  “I slept next to the stove once. When Chanko had a litter of pups in the winter. It was too cold for them outside in the kennel, so we put them in the kitchen. I kept an eye on them by dragging my blanket out to sleep next to their box.”

  She gave him a lopsided look. “You’re still an odd boy, Yanko.”

  “Yes,” he said agreeably. “Do you want to hear more about my pumpkins?”

  “Maybe later,” she said, but her eyes twinkled.

  He was aware of a couple of Zirabo’s men trotting up the hallway in their direction, but he held Jhali’s gaze, wondering if she would like to celebrate their victory by finding a shrine to kiss in later. Or perhaps a less blasphemous place. He didn’t want to presume to suggest a bedroom, but it seemed like they ought to be able to find a private room in this gargantuan residence, even if hundreds of troops were occupying it currently.

  A throat cleared. “Honored Mage? Prince Zirabo would like to see you in the lizard stable.”

  Yanko scratched his jaw. That wasn’t quite the private room he’d had in mind. It seemed kisses would have to wait for later.

  “Will you take me?” Yanko asked the soldier. “I don’t know where anything is yet.”

  “The lizard stable is usually outside,” Jhali said dryly.

  Yanko elbowed her in the ribs as they trailed after the men. “There’s a lot of outside to this place.”

  “True.”

  The soldiers took them through a door, across a courtyard, and into a vehicle parking area that led to a driveway. Yanko sensed several Made objects in one of the nearby structures—the power sources for carriages, likely—but the soldiers took them to an unassuming one-story building with a handful of guards standing out front, the door opened to the scent of stale lizard droppings.

  “Puntak, puntak!” came a warning cry before Kei alighted on Yanko’s shoulder.

  Yanko grinned, pleased that the parrot was unscathed, and stroked his feathered chest.

  Kei batted him on the back of the head with a wing. “Seeds?”

  “Yes, of course.” Yanko, wondering what the watching guards thought of a dragon-slaying mage being abused so, piled his handfuls of sunflower seeds on a ceramic bench.

  He left Kei munching and followed Jhali into the stable. He wrinkled his nose as the lizard scent intensified and wondered what Zirabo had found of interest in here. He couldn’t possibly have chosen this spot as his new headquarters.

  He sensed Zirabo at the end of the building, past several empty cages, standing in a feed and tack room with General Dom Joo and two people Yanko hadn’t expected to encounter again. He almost tripped, startling their guides as well as Jhali, who reached out and gripped his arm for support.

  “Sorry. There was a…” Yanko glanced back, hoping some raised crack in the floor might make a plausible excuse for his clumsiness. There weren’t any cracks, but a partially petrified pile of lizard droppings rested in the middle of the walk. “Uh, yeah.” He waved at that. Good enough.

  The soldiers squinted at him, shrugged, and continued on. Yanko wondered how long it would be until more people than Jhali demoted him from powerful mage to odd boy.

  More guards stood outside of the tack room. Now that they were deep in enemy territory, it looked like the troops would put extra effort into protecting Zirabo. Or maybe they’d simply been considered at the arrival of the Turgonian agents.

  Yanko stepped into the tack room to find Zirabo next to a trapdoor in the floor, his hands in his pockets. Sicarius and Amaranthe stood across from him, Amaranthe chatting and gesturing as she spoke in her slow, precise Nurian, and Sicarius standing with his arms folded over his chest as he kept an eye on the window, the door, and the guards.

  “Honored Prince.” Yanko bowed to Zirabo. “And Honored Turgonians.”

  He wasn’t sure how respectful he should be of spies from another nation who were doing who knew what in his country, but they had helped with that pirate battle, which had resulted in a Nurian ship going free, so he wouldn’t make judgments prematurely.

  “Hello, Yanko,” Amaranthe said. “It’s good to see that you’re still alive. And that your magic isn’t draining you overly much these days.” Her eyes crinkled.

  Was that an allusion to the battle at the gate? And if so, was it simply a friendly comment on it, or was she letting him know that she had ways to know everything that went on in and around the city?

  “I’ve had my moments,” he murmured, thinking of the days he’d spent unconscious on the new continent.

  “Was Professor Hawkcrest returned to Turgonia?” Sicarius asked him, his voice as cool as always, nothing of Amaranthe’s friendly twinkle in his dark eyes.

  “Yes,” Yanko said. “Consul Tynlee helped him arrange passage on a ship heading back that way. I don’t know if he’s made it yet or not, but he should have. It was several weeks ago.”

  Sicarius didn’t acknowledge the response with anything so effusive as a Good.

  “Now that we’re all here,” Zirabo said to the agents, “are you going to share this surprise that you promise I’ll like?”

  “You will definitely like it.” Amaranthe grinned at him and then clasped Yanko’s forearm as if they were old friends. “And you will too.”

  She seemed genuinely enthused to share this—whatever it was—with them. Her grin made it hard to mind her familiarity, and Yanko wagered she won over a lot of the crusty Turgonian soldiers she likely interacted with regularly.

  Amaranthe released him and pointed at the trapdoor. “Shall I lead?”

  “Is it depressing that I grew up here and didn’t know this existed?” Zirabo waved to a reed mat rolled against
one wall that must have covered the trapdoor. “I know of many of the secret passageways in the palace proper, escape routes that apparently didn’t help my father.” He grimaced. “But I didn’t know the lizard workers had need of escapes.”

  Amaranthe shrugged. “If it helps, I didn’t know about it either. It’s my first time in your capital. In your nation, actually. A year ago, I didn’t speak any Nurian, but a certain tyrannical operative suggested I should remedy my ignorance.”

  “An agent working around the world should not be ignorant of the local language,” Sicarius said.

  “You’re the tyrannical operative?” Zirabo asked.

  “I am an operative.” Sicarius’s cool eyes narrowed slightly as he regarded Amaranthe. “Suitable adjectives can be debated.”

  Yanko would have considered his expression baleful, but Amaranthe grinned and patted him on the chest.

  “I’ll lead,” she said brightly and flung open the trapdoor.

  Zirabo moved to go next, but one of the guards held up his hand, insisting on taking that spot. Zirabo, a second guard, and Yanko followed them down gray steps into a musty stone corridor. More with his senses than his eyes, Yanko saw Jhali and Sicarius giving each other stone-faced glares as each tried to get the other to go next. Yanko couldn’t blame Jhali. He would feel nervous with Sicarius at his back too.

  Jhali either lost the exchange or worried about letting Yanko get too far away from her, for she finally hopped down and trotted to catch up with him.

  “Do you have any idea what this is about?” she murmured from his side.

  “Not in the least.” Yanko stretched out with his magic but didn’t sense as much as he expected. The walls of the tunnels seemed to contain threads of something that reminded him uncomfortably of the mage-hunter artifact in the island fortress. It didn’t hurt him, but it dampened his senses, making it difficult to detect anything above or below them or even that far ahead. “Oddly so,” he murmured.

  Jhali glanced sharply at him. “Do you believe we’re in danger?”

  Zirabo wasn’t noticeably worried, so Yanko shook his head.

  The musty tunnel sloped downward as they walked, and Yanko wondered how far under the city they would go. Their tunnel led to others, and they turned at intersections, leaving him wondering if he could find his way back, especially with the walls insulated against his magic. Zirabo still appeared relaxed, and he took some comfort from that.

  Sometimes, when they made turns, Yanko spotted Sicarius walking in the gloom behind them, not bothering with a lantern. Yanko erected a barrier behind his and Jhali’s backs, just in case. He was relieved that whatever was in the walls didn’t keep him from performing magic.

  The passage sloped upward again, turned once more, and stopped in front of an old bronze door with rivets around the frame. Amaranthe pushed it open and light came out. Someone inside cursed.

  “That is not an approved use for your shackles, General,” Amaranthe said cheerfully as she walked inside.

  The guards trundled inside after Amaranthe, a thud-thunk sounded, and a few more people cursed, then sighed. Like defeated prisoners. Yanko hoped he wasn’t being led to some impromptu Turgonian torture chamber.

  After Zirabo stepped inside, Yanko and Jhali followed. Sicarius stayed in the tunnel outside, leaning against the wall and taking a guard position.

  Yanko squinted at the brightness of the light coming in through a long narrow grate in the ceiling. A storm drain? Though this room was enclosed, a channel ran through the floor, disappearing into holes to either side. It was dry now, but old cracked mud layered the bottom.

  Yanko didn’t spend long examining it. He was more interested in the five men and one woman sitting on the floor inside, all except one with their hands tied or chained behind their backs. One had maneuvered his chains to the front and was alternating between glaring at Amaranthe and eyeing the grate above. One of the bars was bent. Maybe he’d been making an escape attempt?

  “Admiral Lahtu,” Zirabo blurted. He looked around the group of prisoners and named all of the other people.

  Yanko didn’t recognize any of their faces, but once the names came out, he knew who they were, but only thanks to Dak’s summations of the rebel factions vying for the dais. The woman was Mir Gray Badger, the scholar he’d said the Turgonian president might have supported if she’d been able to gather more troops to her side. The others…

  As Yanko stared around, it dawned on him that he was in the presence of six people who’d gathered troops with the intent of overthrowing the Great Chief and taking his place. More than that, someone here had likely been responsible for the Great Chief’s death. And Zirabo’s brothers’ deaths. He had probably been a target, too, one who had inconveniently escaped.

  Zirabo gazed at the people with a grim face, perhaps thinking similar thoughts. Three of the prisoners met his eyes with defiant glowers, but three others, including the scholar, looked down. Abashed to have been caught and to stand before the Great Chief’s son?

  “Prince Zirabo,” Amaranthe said. “Mage White Fox. My partner and I have collected some of the faction leaders, thus to ensure they can’t make trouble in this last week while the rule and new direction of Nuria are determined.”

  Yanko wasn’t sure why he was being included in this meeting, and he still felt uncomfortable when anyone called him a mage. Fortunately, nobody looked expectantly at him. Maybe he wouldn’t have to speak. Maybe he was here to demonstrate to these people that Zirabo had the support of mages, at least some mages.

  “Officially or unofficially?” Zirabo asked Amaranthe, ignoring the glowers.

  “Oh, you know how things go. If the results turn out to be desirable, it was official. If not, the president gets to deny any knowledge that someone in his intelligence office sent spies to Nuria.”

  Zirabo snorted. “I do know how those things go, but what, I wonder…” He glanced at the prisoners. “Maybe we should discuss that later.”

  “Maybe,” Amaranthe said easily. “Consider these our gift to the new ruler of Nuria.”

  Amaranthe extended a hand toward the prisoners, as if offering a table full of gold and silver. One of the men snorted and spat. She ignored him, smiling serenely.

  “And what do you propose we do with this gift?” Zirabo stroked his jaw and looked at Yanko.

  For advice? That seemed ludicrous. Yanko barely knew who they were. But Zirabo genuinely seemed to want his opinion.

  “At the least, keeping them locked up and out of the fight so they can’t impede us would be useful,” Yanko said.

  “Killing them would also keep them from impeding you,” Sicarius said coolly from the doorway. He spoke in Nurian so there was no chance of any of the leaders not understanding. Several faces grew pale.

  “Surely not the highest and best use of such individuals,” Amaranthe murmured.

  “Maybe we can offer them land on the new continent if they agree to help us.” Yanko smiled so Zirabo would know it was a joke. He was still bemused that he’d managed to get so many pirates to follow him with that offer. But if these people’s ambitions had been to rule all of Nuria, a few acres on a remote and currently desolate continent would not entice them.

  Zirabo gripped his chin and stared thoughtfully at Yanko. “Maybe not that, but they might be tempted by a chance at least. Though I’m not that inclined to grant that. They all plotted against my father, and either Sun Dragon, Tang Chu, or one of them was responsible for his death—and for the deaths of my brothers.” Zirabo leveled the coolest look Yanko had seen from him at the prisoners. “I am not a bloodthirsty man, but I believe the assassin Sicarius might be right.”

  A couple of already pale-faced men blanched further at the name.

  “But if they could be convinced to work with us and bring their troops to work with us…” Yanko said, catching on that they were putting on a show for their prisoners by taking opposing sides. “Would not pardons be worth considering?”

  Amaranthe stepp
ed back outside with Sicarius, letting them take it from there.

  “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” Zirabo asked. “We have the support of far more people than they ever did, and our victory is inevitable.”

  Yanko knew that their victory was anything but inevitable, especially since Sun Dragon’s forces hadn’t shown themselves yet. They might be preparing to attack the palace that very night. And then there was the rest of the Great Land to consider. Yanko and Zirabo didn’t have troops in any other city.

  “Would it not be arrogant for us to assume that?” Yanko asked. “Surely, we could use them. And even if their actions thus far have been criminal—” he felt like a raging hypocrite saying those words, even for show, “—in times of great upheaval like this, when brothers have fought brothers, perhaps it is better to offer pardons more frequently than judgments. So there are people left in Nuria to rule when this is all over.”

  Zirabo blinked a few times before answering, then smiled warmly at him. Yanko hoped that meant he had said the right thing and that it hadn’t sounded like he was trying to justify his own past crimes.

  “Well.” Zirabo walked a circle around the prisoners and looked them over. “I’m skeptical about their trustworthiness and would fear being backstabbed at an inopportune time, but perhaps you’re so powerful that you need not worry about such things.”

  Yanko reminded himself that they were putting on a show and that he shouldn’t laugh out loud.

  “I have a good bodyguard,” he offered instead, smiling at Jhali, who stood near Sicarius, in a similar guard stance, watching the prisoners for trouble and also keeping an eye on the tunnel.

  A few of the prisoners glanced at her. Nobody scoffed or rolled their eyes in derision. Maybe it was a good thing that Jhali continued to wear the garb of a mage hunter. Even if one of their major sects had been destroyed, mage hunters were a part of history and legend, and all Nurians with magical talent, or family members with magical talent, feared them.

  “Ultimately, it’s your decision, Yanko,” Zirabo said.