Blood of the Gods

by David Mealing

  “Sarine?” Ka’Inari caught her.

  “Are you all right?” Acherre asked. “The riders will be here any moment, at the pace I saw. If we’re going to try to run, we need to mount up and ride now.”

  “I … I’m …” she said. “I don’t know. I can’t …”

  She wants you to listen to her.

  “Something is wrong. Sarine isn’t fit to try to outrace mounted hunters,” Ka’Inari said, accompanying it with gestures for Acherre’s sake. “We stay, and meet them here.”

  Blood pounded in her chest. The sun vanished in her vision, a red disc that soured to purple before it went black. Three figures stood at the head of the horde of strange-armored soldiers. One wearing a mask of flesh; one whose hand was withered, covered in a purple aura; and one whose form blurred, seeming to occupy a dozen places at once.

  “Sarine.” Ka’Inari dropped his pack, moving to grip her by the shoulders. “Look at me.”

  She did, feeling herself exist in two places at once. Her body stood next to a tangled wall of brush, but the rest of her felt the terror of watching the three figures marching toward her, and suddenly where there had been three, there were nine. A man who could cloak himself in glass; another who could dance on water with a sword in his hand; another with skin of iron and great claws for hands. More.

  “This is a vision,” the shaman said. “You are receiving a sending from the spirits of things-to-come. How can this be?”

  Not the vision spirits, Anati thought to them both. They won’t talk to her. It’s just the Goddess’s memories. Should I make her stop?

  “Yes,” Sarine said, hissing it through clenched teeth.

  “They’re almost on us,” Acherre called out. “Three coming straight on; more, sweeping around to flank.”

  Sorry, Anati thought. You are bonded to her. Sometimes, she will want to speak.

  “I want nothing to do with her,” she said. “Keep her quiet, as much as you can.”

  Cracking brush and pounding hooves drew her attention back toward the way they’d come, and three riders appeared. Each man’s head was shaved save for thin strips of hair running down the center; two strips for the riders to the left and right, and four for the one at their head. They were bronze-skinned, dressed in cured hides sewn into tunics and breeches, and they carried carbines of the sort the cavalry used, half muskets leveled toward where she, Acherre, and Ka’Inari stood together with their horses.

  “What passes here?” The lead rider looked as though he’d changed his mind as to his planned greeting, looking back and forth between Ka’Inari in his shaman’s regalia and Sarine.

  “Honored warriors,” Ka’Inari said—though to her ears, before Anati translated, it was plain Ka’Inari spoke a different tongue than the riders. “We come to your lands under the guidance of the visions of things-to-come.”

  The lead rider gave him an empty look, keeping his weapon leveled toward them.

  “We came chasing after an evil man,” Sarine said. “Now we’re returning home.”

  The rider lowered his gun a fraction. “How is it a white-skinned demon speaks our tongue better than one who pretends to the garb of the spirits?”

  “He is a shaman,” she said. “Ka’Inari, from the Sinari tribe. My name is Sarine, and this is Gendarme-Captain Acherre; we’re from New Sarresant, far to the east.”

  The riders conferred, speaking in low tones to each other. At the edge of her vision she saw another pair of mounted warriors converging from the north, keeping their distance but still close enough to fire their weapons, if it came to it.

  “Their shaman has been slain,” Ka’Inari said to her. “The spirits showed me great suffering among these Erhapi. If they believe we are connected to the cause, they will not hesitate to—”

  “You seek evil,” the lead rider said abruptly. “A man, you said. Speak of him.”

  She glanced toward Ka’Inari. If he’d had a vision portending danger for them, she’d as soon know what it was before she spoke. Yet it seemed the riders wouldn’t afford them the opportunity to confer.

  “A man in black,” she said. “A man who carries two swords, and has a companion, of the same sort …” She trailed off, realizing Anati had vanished from around her forearm. “… a serpent companion, with great power, though it is not a thing of your spirits.”

  “You spoke of pursuing this man, and yet now you mean to return home?” the Erhapi tribesman said. “What sort of evil did he commit, that you are so content to give up your pursuit?”

  “He was—” A rush of foreign anger flooded through her again, and she fought it down. “One of our companions … fell, to a sickness. We’d sought the man in black as much for his knowledge of a cure as a desire to be sure he was far away from our peoples. And his evils are many. Too many to list.”

  The riders conferred again, but snapped attention back to her before she could turn to Ka’Inari for more insight.

  “You will come with us, Sarine of the New Sarresant. If this man is as vile as you say, you will have the chance to speak of it before the Erhapi elders. Convince us, and we will be in your debt.”

  Another surge of emotion welled in her chest; this time she wasn’t certain whether it was hers. “You’ve seen him? He’s passed through your lands?”

  “We have. He has laid a heavy burden on us, in a time of loss. But if there are reasons not to trust his words, our elders would know it, before he guides us to war.”

  “Guides you to war? You mean he’s still here?”

  “Yes. Your quarry is among the Erhapi. Come with us, and you may confront him for all to see.”

  32

  TIGAI

  Daisheng Banking House

  Ghingwai

  Numbness settled in behind his eyes. He’d seen Mei’s face behind the first score of men he’d killed. She would have understood. Dao was the one who would judge him, aghast at the violations of propriety in his use of magic, to say nothing of the shock of outright murder. Mei was harder, for all her softness.

  “What manner of devil spawn are you?”

  The captain’s bodyguards stood a few paces apart, each square in their stance, spears leveled in a grip at their midsections. Both stared at him with horror in their eyes, as though they’d drained feeling from him and stolen it for themselves.

  He attacked wildly, rushing forward with his knife extended, and took one of their spears in the gut. The impact wrenched him backward, but not before he opened a gash on the leftmost guard’s lower torso. A kidney strike; death, without a surgeon’s intervention.

  He snapped back to his anchor, standing in the doorway, where he had entered the chamber moments before.

  The man he’d wounded dropped his spear, clutching at his belly as though he could repair the damage and keep his innards in. The rightmost guard stepped back, muttering something to the wind spirits and eyeing his partner without looking away from Tigai.

  “Run,” Tigai said. “Run, and I won’t kill you.”

  The guardsman held his ground for a heartbeat, then turned and fled for the doors. The Daisheng Bank had six: double archways, propped open by dead men struck down by Tigai’s knife.

  Tigai let him go, entering the room at a slow walk.

  “Your master,” he said to the leftmost guardsman, the one still clutching his belly. “First-Captain Grazh. Where is he?”

  The guardsman’s face twisted with a mix of shock, pain, anger, and defiance.

  Tigai sighed. “Just tell me which chamber he’s hiding in. He’s not paying you enough to die, and die you will if you don’t have that cut looked at.”

  “Go back to hell, you magi son of a dog.”

  “My father was a bit doggish, now you mention it. I’ll give you one more chance. Directions to where the captain is hiding, and you can walk out that door. I don’t even care if you lie. Just tell me something to keep me from having to kill you.”

  The guardsman spat.

  Tigai slashed him across the eyes, s
praying blood across the chamber as the guardsman howled and crumpled to his knees.

  Outside the banking house the city had long since erupted into chaos. Boots pounded in the streets, more disorganized clatter than the lockstep marching of the Imperial police. Women and men screamed, no few of them wounded by his blade. If there was a secret exit from the banking house—and surely there was—he had to hope the bankers had used it prior to First-Captain Grazh converting the building into a makeshift fortress. With luck he’d frighten the mercenary lord into making a dash for the main exit before Grazh chanced on any secret passages.

  He shoved a lamp through a paper screen in a crash, and picked a hall at random to race down, kicking doors and thumping against the walls. Jade and porcelain vases shattered as he kicked their plinths, scattering shards across hand-woven Hagali carpets, and he raced past doors that opened to reveal gilded armoires, cabinets, scroll racks, and tables. First-Captain Grazh might have chosen any of them to hide in, and he didn’t have hours to properly comb through its rooms.

  “Show yourself, coward!” he shouted into the halls. “Death comes for you.”

  With that he threw a wood bust down a stairwell at the end of a hallway, and kicked in the plinth for good measure. Then he closed his eyes, hooked himself to the starfield, and found the same anchor he’d used a moment before, leaving him standing in the doorway of the banking house lobby.

  Breath came hard as he waited. He fought to keep quiet, preserving the impression that the main floor had been sacked and left behind in his rage. Another minute, perhaps. He waited, unmoving, watching the halls.

  Footsteps sounded quietly, and First-Captain Grazh emerged, creeping into view from the farthest passage, aiming to make his escape while Tigai’s attentions were elsewhere. Tigai had never seen the mercenary captain before, but it was simple enough to place him, judging from the gold-silk shirt, the gold earrings, and the gold-hilted tulwar blade sheathed through his gold-studded belt.

  Grazh met his eyes for a moment before panic dawned.

  “I can pay you,” the captain said. “Please.”

  Tigai charged.

  The mercenary spun, but Tigai was faster, racing across the lobby before Grazh could make ten paces down the hall. He threw the knife and missed, whipping it past the mercenary’s ear and sending him crashing off-balance into the side wall. Tigai drew his pistol and fired before Grazh could find his footing, and this time he struck true, pitching the man forward through a haze of smoke.

  He couldn’t hear the sound of the last captain’s body smacking into the floor through the ringing whine left behind by the pistol, but emotion flooded through him at the sight, bathing over his numbness with relief.

  “That’s it,” he said, and reached into his blood-soiled coat pocket for his prizes. Four ears dropped to the center of the teahouse table. “I only thought to take a token after the first two were done, but I swear to you on my brother’s name, they’re all dead.”

  Lin Qishan picked up one of the ears, handling it as though it were a gold coin before depositing it back among its fellows.

  “Fine work, lordling. I believe you, though you’d best hope Master Indra does the same.”

  “He’s here, then?”

  “He’s on his way.”

  A serving man brought their tray before Tigai could say anything more, a steaming kettle with rice cakes dabbed with sugar ringing the base. If the man thought it odd to see four bloody ears decorating the center of his table he showed nothing on his face, and said less, only laid the tray down and poured their first cups, offering crisp bows to each of them in turn.

  Lin Qishan seemed content to drink and eat in silence, and he obliged her. The shock of the night’s events had put gauze through his senses. He’d lost count of the men he’d killed long before tonight, but it was still a horror to do so many at once. All his upbringing had taught him magi didn’t move in the open. They existed, of course—he was one of them, in a manner of speaking—but the founding of the Empire had exiled them to their monasteries, and to his knowledge the only violence done by magic was done by house retainers, and even they had the shame to do it in private and cover up its consequences. His pirating was among the more egregious violations of that taboo so far as he knew, though he’d always been careful enough not to draw the attention of any Great and Noble Houses. Until tonight.

  “They’re coming, you know,” he said abruptly. “The magi.”

  She smiled behind her teacup, taking a short sip before lowering it again. “Yes, I expect they are.”

  “You must have been House-trained, no? Do their taboos mean nothing to you?”

  “I could ask you the same, Lord Tigai.”

  “So you mean to start another war?”

  She shrugged. “I mean to do whatever Master Indra’s coin pays for.”

  “You’re a mercenary. No better than the fat fools I killed tonight.”

  “You’re a pirate. A touch worse, by most people’s reckoning.”

  He glowered at her; she returned to her tea.

  The innards of the teahouse seemed immune to the alarms and shouts that reigned elsewhere in the city. He’d set an anchor here, and returned as soon as the last of his marks was dead; the building had already been emptied, save for Lin Qishan and the service staff.

  He tried to think of another means of challenging her and came up with nothing. Whatever the shape of their plan, it would end with thousands dead, if the city-lords took it on themselves to take revenge on the magi and storm the local monasteries. No telling what sort of magic would be practiced therein; perhaps nothing more deadly than his old tutor’s potato farming. Then again, they could be skilled with iron, silver, steel, or glass, and stories spoke of methods far more frightening and dangerous. The Empire had been founded on the promise of the magi to govern themselves, to withdraw the gift of magic from public life as an answer to centuries of strife and war. There were always going to be exceptions, but not so the public killing of every mercenary captain hired to defend one of the six greatest cities in the Empire. He’d done a terrible thing. Even Remarin would chastise him for it. But it would be worth having done it, to hear Remarin tell him he was a bloody fool again.

  “Is it done?”

  Master Indra’s voice sent a jolt through him, a mix of hate and surprise. He turned to see Indra and his apprentice standing behind the table.

  “Not yet,” Lin Qishan said.

  His hate flared to rage. “Not yet?” he said. “I bloody killed them all, just as you said. I swear it, if you’ve harmed her again, I will murder the lot of you if it takes following you to the world’s end.”

  “Calm yourself, Lord Tigai,” Lin Qishan said. She hadn’t stirred from behind the table, though he’d risen from his seat to face Indra and Jyeong without realizing he’d done it.

  “Our lordling has kicked the hornet’s nest,” she said. “It remains to be seen whether the hornets will respond.”

  “It was supposed to be done already, before I came to the city. You promised it would be done.”

  “I can only make promises for myself. If you give me inferior tools, I get the results you allow me to deliver.”

  “Am I the inferior tool in this situation?” Tigai said. “I don’t even know what you’re doing here. How am I supposed to accomplish anything, without knowing what I’m doing?”

  Master Indra showed him a cruel smile. “You’ll know soon enough.” He turned back to Lin Qishan. “You’re absolutely sure the rebel magi are in the city?”

  “I’d hardly have summoned you if I wasn’t.”

  “Rebels?” Tigai said. “What did you have me do? Is this some ploy to seize power? Is that why you abducted me? Am I to take you all to the Emperor’s vaults, now that you’ve lopped the head off the armies here in Ghingwai?”

  Lin Qishan looked annoyed, Jyeong looked smug, and Master Indra looked him over coolly. None of them spoke.

  “You can’t mean to do this,” Tigai continued.
“For two centuries we’ve had peace in the Empire, precisely because the magi accepted their place in exile. If you unseat the Emperor, the noble families will resist. Can you say how many magi lurk among their retainers? You’re dooming half the Empire to die for your hubris.”

  “The assassin has a conscience,” Jyeong said, but Master Indra raised a hand to cut him short.

  “Put your fears to rest, Yanjin Tigai,” Master Indra said. “You know nothing of events unfolding here, but I assure you, we do not stand in opposition to the Emperor. Quite the contrary.”

  A thundering boom sounded from outside the teahouse, loud enough to shake the building frame. The teapot went so far as to rattle off its serving dish, spilling hot liquid on the floor.

  “You see,” Lin Qishan said when the boom died down. “They’re here.”

  Lin led the way toward the boom, with Jyeong taking up the rear. The streets of Ghingwai were as clear as Tigai had ever seen them, and he’d done his share of carousing there in the small hours before dawn.

  “This will be your final task, Lord Tigai,” Master Indra said as Lin gestured for them to cross the street ahead. “Do this, and you will be released from my service.”

  “Do what?” he asked. Another boom rumbled through the buildings on both sides of the street, louder than it had been at the teahouse.

  Lin held up a fist to halt them at the mouth of an alley. “Here,” she said.

  Tigai recognized the place; the market square with General An’s statue, where he’d come to kill the first of the six mercenary captains.

  Master Indra laid a hand on Tigai’s shoulder, squeezing in an approximation of a gesture of familiarity, the sort of things fathers did to their sons, though Tigai’s own father had rarely displayed such affection.

  “There will be a man in white, in the square ahead,” Master Indra said. “You are to hook him to the strands. Bring him to the Temple of the Dragon.”

  Another boom sounded, this time close enough to be mere paces away. Gravel and dirt sprayed into the alley in a cloud of dust, and voices cut through the silence of its aftermath.