Pauper's Empire: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 2)

by L. W. Jacobs

  “No? Why not?”

  “Because you’re not from here.”

  The biawelo’s chin just rose higher. “You mean because I’m a lighthair. Because no matter how many Broken I kill or how many times I save Tai from dying while you’re off somewhere else even though he’s supposedly your friend from years back, I’m still just a lighthair from Worldsmouth who couldn’t possibly understand.”

  Aelya clenched one fist in the other. She wanted to do worse than slap the biawelo now. “Yep. Pretty much sums it up.”

  The woman huffed and looked ugly. “You really don’t trust me? Even after I saved your friend from prison? Even after I killed those Broken in front of you in the fort?”

  “Could just all be a front,” Aelya snapped, mind jumping at the connections. “A plan you set up to make you look good. To make us think you’re loyal.”

  The biawelo stared. “You don’t even realize how insane that sounds, do you?”

  Why don’t you just kill her? Curly asked.

  “This whole situation is insane. What we’re trying to do is insane. So, if I sound insane, good. Somebody needs to be.”

  “No, what we need to be is logical and clear-headed. Last time I talked to Tai, his plan was to talk to Nauro and then find you and work it out. So, if you haven’t seen him, there’s a good chance he’s in danger.”

  Aelya felt a stab of fear, despite her anger at Tai, and the satisfaction that he had been planning to come to her. “Do you know where he went?”

  “He was going to check the old rebel camp. In the eastern forest.”

  “Yeah. I lived there, remember?”

  Ella scowled, then looked at something behind Aelya. Her eyes widened.

  “What happened, d’you see Tai?”

  The lighthaired woman shook her head. “Isn’t that—”

  Aelya turned and saw a ghost.

  “Karhail?”

  The grizzled man spread his arms, movements jerky. “Yes.”

  His voice sounded strained, but he was alive! Here, when they needed him! Aelya forgot about the biawelo and ran toward the former Ghost Rebellion leader, throwing arms around him. “Karhail, you meckstained shattercock! Where the hell have you been? What happened?”

  The bulky Seinjial grinned, but his expression was still strained, and this close he was covered in scars, his skin an awful pale color. “Band of us,” he said. “Rebels all. Escaped the—prison. Gendrys. Made it back.”

  Thank the Prophet. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. Where are they, man? Bring ‘em in!”

  “Coming,” he said, jerking a hand backward. “Theron. Beal. Lumo.”

  Aelya frowed. “Lumo’s been here the whole time. You okay?” He was acting strange, but who knew what they’d done to him in the prisons. What he’d done to get out. You didn’t escape lighthair prisons. Not without ripping the roof off like Tai did.

  “Go. I’ll go. Get them,” the man grated, then spun and began walking away, movements jerky.

  The lighthair said something behind her but Aelya ignored it. “Hold up man, let me walk with you! How did you escape? Prophet’s piece, how did you survive? Tai told me what happened!”

  She caught up to him but he was still walking with that jerky motion, sweat beading on his face despite the chill. In the distance Aelya caught sight of the other rebels, looking just as mecked up as Karhail. She felt something too—the buzz of uai.

  A lot of uai.

  She turned to him. “Karhail?”

  “Run,” the man whispered. “Run while you can.”

  “What—”

  Then his uai hit like a slap to the face and he seized her by the neck.

  40

  Ella gasped as Karhail lifted Aelya from the ground. Behind him, the ragtag group of escapees started running, some of them shooting from the ground as a wave of uai rolled off them. She knew something had been strange about the man.

  He was Broken. They were Broken.

  And Aelya was going to die.

  Ella struck resonance hard and ran for the dangling girl. Prejudiced or not, Aelya was a staunch defender of the city, and she didn’t deserve this. Besides, if Ella could get the jump on this band of Broken she might be able to deal with them all in slip.

  There was a scar-faced woman running from the pack of Broken on the other side of Aelya. Not wading through honey like the rest of the Broken. Running.

  Another timeslip. And judging from the swords she gripped in both fists, one more used to fighting than she was.

  Ella ran anyway. She would be faster. She had always been faster. And if she could get to the pair first, kill what was left of Karhail and free Aelya, she would have an ally. Ella drew the dagger she kept belted at one side, grateful Feynrick had convinced her of it, and ran faster, swimming through the thickened air.

  They reached Karhail at the same moment, the scarred woman sidestepping the frozen pair to get at her. Ella sidestepped the other way, reaching up to slash the grizzled throat of the former head of the Ghost Rebellion. “So long, former ally,” she said softly, dropping back and circling as the blood began to well, then spray, from his ruined throat. “You deserved better than this, but at least it’s over.”

  The scarred woman attacked, reversing directions to lunge at Ella.

  Ella dodged back the other way, shouting in surprise, fear pumping in her chest. The only other slip she’d fought had been in Gendrys, and he wasn’t nearly as fast as this one.

  The woman reversed again, trying to get at her, while Karhail’s hands jerked open and Aelya drifted toward the ground. It was like a child’s game of Round the Table, only their table was rapidly collapsing, blood gouting from his throat, and only one of them was prepared for what came after.

  Why hadn’t she studied weapons, in all this time? At least spent a day or two with the militia? Ignoring the fact that they might not even let her in, now.

  The woman jabbed a sword through the gap between Karhail and Aelya and Ella leapt back, screaming despite herself. The muted thump of a footstep behind her made her remember the other Broken running at them. She spun to find the closest just a few paces away, face frozen in a snarl.

  This, at least, she could deal with. Ella cut his throat and ran on to the next one, glancing behind to see the other slip chasing. She cut the throat of another, then a bald-headed man with a spiked mace and a soldier looking no more than fifteen years, the deep dischordant hum of their uai all around her, like waves in the sea of slowed air.

  The Broken timeslip was catching up. Ella cut three more throats, weaving between the time-slowed fighters, spine beginning to ache. Every Broken she killed was a huge help for Aelya and her team, but she was still going to die. She didn’t have a plan for the timeslip. She needed a plan.

  How did you kill a Broken timeslip?

  Ella ran at the last fighter, a short and wiry man who already looked half-dead with crusted blood. His uai was strong, throbbing off him in waves. Behind her the timeslip screamed, sounding all too close. The air still throbbed with uai—like that day in the prison fort.

  Like Sigwil overcoming.

  An idea struck her and Ella swiveled around behind the wiry man, slurring up her resonance. The other slip ran a blade through the space she’d been, stabbing the man. This was insane, and probably wouldn’t work, but she had nothing to lose.

  Doing experiments even now. At least she’d die a scholar.

  True to the Broken, the man’s uai continued despite the sword sticking from his chest. Ella flexed her resonance, speeding and slowing time as the other slip pulled her sword free. She needed to get it just right—

  There. The scarred slip was lunging when Ella’s resonance harmonized with the dying man’s, locking into a low, powerful thrum.

  The effect was instant. The timeslip shrieked, but this was not a shriek of frustration, or rage, or any nameable emotion. It was a scream of insanity, of a creature tortured beyond the limits of its mind, and the slip snapped backwards,
body jerking, dropping one sword as the other swung wildly. Ella held desperately on to the harmony despite the growing ache in her back. She didn’t know what was happening, but something about the resonance was harming the timeslip. Or confusing her?

  Whatever it was, it was working. With a start Ella realized the wiry man was acting oddly too, just doing so at a quarter the speed of the timeslip. Had it disrupted their control somehow? Either way, it suddenly looked like she had a chance again. And that Ella needed to live to tell someone else about this—it could be the key to their survival.

  With a horrible cry the timeslip slashed the sword at herself, laying open the inside of her leg in a welter of blood. She fell, still thrashing, but clearly never to rise. Ella pulled her knife across the Broken man’s throat, the comrades beyond him falling in slow motion, and dropped her resonance.

  41

  Aelya went from talking to choking to falling almost too fast to follow. She landed on her feet, the high-pitched cries of timeslips all around her, and was just beginning to process that Karhail was Broken, that the entire pack of escaped rebels he’d brought with him were also Broken, three or four of them launching into the air, when Ella appeared at the far end, a thrashing woman at her feet.

  Like a struck line of toppling blocks the whole pack of Broken suddenly stumbled, suddenly clutched at slashed throats gouting blood, suddenly fell screaming and thrashing to earth, leaving only the lighthaired biawelo at the far end, her dress a bloody shade of red.

  “Mecksticking meckstains,” Aelya whispered, as Karhail too toppled next to her, his blood hot against the side of her face. Biawelo or not, that woman could fight.

  “Aelya!” one of the Blackspines shouted, and she snapped back to reality. There were still Broken in the air. Four of them. Most importantly, one of them was currently swooping at her with a sword.

  She dove out of the way, reflex hitting before she could think to strike resonance or defend. Shouts sounded behind her, and she rolled up to see her five men engaging the flying Broken, one of them already down, Broken circling in the air like armed vultures. Intelligent armed vultures.

  They struck as one, swooping down at her men, weapons out. To their credit, her Blackspines didn’t break, two of them striking their own resonances, but as the Broken flew up again, two of her five men lay on the ground, and Leglin clutched a rent in his side. This would not last long.

  “Harmonize!” Ella was shouting, running toward them, just as another shout sounded from the hillside—Sigwil. Good. The meckstain could die with the rest of them.

  “Circle up!” Aelya shouted, striking her own resonance, drawing her sword with her good hand. “Don’t let them scare you, we can do this!”

  The lighthaired woman was still shouting, but there was no time. She got in a circle with her men, really just a square with the four of them back-to-back, watching the Broken above. They circled, occasionally screaming, as the street cleared out around them, and distant alarm bells began to ring. She could hear the men’s heavy breathing, feel their fear even through the rush of her resonance.

  “Don’t back down,” she said. “This is what we trained for. What we live for. We’ve defeated them before. We can do it again.”

  She didn’t believe it, but it needed to be said. No sense in dying afraid, or alone.

  Leglin started to say something, but the Broken swooped in.

  42

  “Sigwil!” Ella yelled as the man pelted down the slope. “Your resonance!”

  His thrum answered her cry just as the Broken circling Aelya’s band swooped in. Ella struck her own resonance, seeking the harmony. She found it just before the wafters hit, and for a moment militiamen and Broken were a tangled, screaming mass.

  Then the Broken shot off in different directions, coordination gone, and a powerful wave of uai was rolling from one of the militiamen. He rose into the air, mouth open, face full of wonder.

  Ella knew that look. He’d overcome. Just like Sigwil. Had they happened to harmonize with him too?

  Screams sounded above them. The Broken were back in formation, circling forty paces off the ground. “Scat,” Ella cursed, dropping resonance. “Sigwil. Save your uai. The harmony seems to confuse them, disrupt their coordination, but it only works when they’re close. Wait for the next attack.”

  The black-banded militiaman was still rising into the air, Aelya’s men shouting at him now. “Leglin!” “Back down for defense!”

  Instead the man shot up, directly at the Broken.

  Ella gasped. The Broken spun, raising weapons. The militiaman slammed into them, sword lodging in one, then flew out above them, as fast as Ella had ever seen Tai move.

  The Broken gave chase.

  In the brief pause this bought them, the militiamen turned to their fallen comrades, and Aelya to her, chest still heaving. The left side of the stocky girl’s head was matted with blood. “What happened?” Aelya barked, voice low.

  She didn’t want her men to hear. Wanted them to believe they had repelled the Broken under their own power.

  “The harmony,” Ella said. “What we spoke of in the meeting. It seems to confuse them. Sigwil and I harmonized our resonances, and—”

  She nodded. “What of Leglin?”

  “The wafter? I don’t know, he—” Then she remembered Gil and that day in the caves long ago, and Sigwil the day of the fort attack. “The harmony. It does help in overcoming.”

  A chorus of screams sounded down the street. Something smashed into a rooftop four houses down—Leglin tangled with a Broken—and two of the flying Broken were shooting toward them.

  “Sigwil,” she snapped. “Now.”

  They struck, and harmonized. In the slowed time of her fading resonance Ella could see the moment when the Broken lost their coordination, about five paces out, their expressions turning from blank determination to horror and pain, their flight swerving, their movements back to the chaotic deaths of the yuraloads she had watched in the rebel camp months ago.

  “Come on!” she yelled, before remembering she was in slip, that no one would hear her in time. She ran forward to where one of the Broken was headed, prying the spear from a fallen militiaman.

  Her resonance failed just as the Broken hit.

  43

  “Mecksicking cockstained Broken,” Aelya growled, pacing the edges of the street while Marrem and her healworkers bent over Ella and the surviving Blackspines, barking orders and trading tools. Feynrick was with her, the bearded Yatiman extra jovial for some reason.

  “Least you got a piece of one,” he said, slapping her on the back. “Poor louts like me missed all the action.”

  “Because you weren’t on the mecking streets,” Aelya snapped. “Could have gotten if you’d believed me about the threats.”

  “Oh, I believed ye, right enough. But seems to me you just got lucky in being here when they struck. And bulk of these Broken were darkhairs, ye might have seen.”

  That much was true. “This isn’t just about lighthairs. It’s about our city being under attack, and you and Tai and the rest of the cockmecking council not doing anything about it.”

  “You call this not doing anything, girl?” Marrem snapped, two fingers deep in a wound while the other worked a needle and thread.

  “Wouldn’t need to be doing it if you’d listened to me,” Aelya called, making sure not to look at the wound again. Fights and battles were fine. Wounds and dying were another thing.

  “Could have listened if ye’d stayed,” Feynrick said, still grinning, watching his men stripping the dead Broken. “Could have been all on the streets if ye’d convinced us. But you got huffy like a little girl, didn’t ye?”

  “Cock yourself,” Aelya growled. Everyone knew exactly why she was wrong. And none of them were ever there when she was right.

  “Looks to me like it was Ella here that saved the day.” He nodded at the blood-soaked lighthair, who sat in the dirt with one of Marrem’s daughters wrapping a cut on her arm. “If ye
hadn’t seen her ye’d all be dead, along with the half the city. A Broken timeslip? Think about what it could do.”

  “Aye,” Aelya said, hating to admit it, knowing he was right. The woman had been key.

  As if on cue Ella stood up, examining her arm. “And it still would have been over fast,” she said, vowels slurring like the lighthaired guards that used to shake down her and Tai’s gang, “if not for the harmonies.”

  “That again?” Feynrick asked, bushy eyebrows shooting up. “What’d ye do with ‘em this time?”

  All Aelya wanted to do was march off, or punch something, or do anything but stand there while the lighthair woman talked smart about how her harmonies had confused the Broken, maybe disrupted whatever communication they had between each other, but Aelya needed to hear this if she was going to fight them.

  Still it galled her that they were being taught by a lighthair, someone from the Councilate, acting superior just like they always did. Leglin and Fedrik just died, and it looked like Rilwas might still, and here she was talking like this was some kind of schoolhouse about how the harmonies helped Leglin overcome, how they might give them the edge in fighting the city.

  “So he overcame but then died?” Aelya snapped, needing to take the woman down a peg or two.

  “The surge of uai that comes after defeating your voice doesn’t protect you,” Ella said, “it just gives you unusual strength.”

  “But I saw him,” Aelya said, waving to where men were working to lower Leglin and a Broken’s body from the second story of a cobbler’s shop. “He was stabbed and dying, and then when he rose up in the air he was just fine.”

  The woman nodded as if it all made sense. “Yes. It seems when you overcome your voice your injuries get healed, but only that one time.” She touched her ear.

  “What a bunch of mecking elkscat,” Aelya spat. Of course there was a reason Leglin was dead, and the lighthair was alive. It all made sense, didn’t it?