Sins of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  “Is there something wrong?” Vlora asked, leaning forward, her pleasant buzz dissipating like a morning fog.

  Devin-Tallis looked one way, then the other, then turned toward her. He opened his mouth and let out a quiet groan, and it took her a moment to see the blood leaking from between his lips. Vlora scrambled from her seat, throwing herself forward to catch Devin-Tallis as he fell, lowering him into the rickshaw with one hand and jamming a powder charge into her mouth with the other. The power lit her veins and darkness became like day to her eyes, revealing two things at once.

  First, that Devin-Tallis had a long, slender dart sticking out of his neck. Second, that they were not alone. The corridors around them were filled with shadows, at least a dozen Palo men and women holding cudgels, knives, and swords. They seemed confident that she could not see them and crouched in waiting while one of their number reloaded a blowgun.

  Vlora drew her pistol and put a bullet between the culprit’s startled eyes before he could bring the blowgun to his lips.

  The crack and flash of the pistol seemed to freeze everyone in place. Vlora glanced at Devin-Tallis and could see he would be dead within moments. She tasted the powder on her tongue, rubbed the grit of it against the roof of her mouth, and reveled in the strength it gave her. “You’ve made a terrible mistake,” she said, drawing her sword.

  The words acted like a signal, and everyone seemed to fly into motion at once. Palo poured from the alleys, weapons raised, war cries on their lips. She let the first one run straight onto her blade and then jerked it with the strength of a powder mage, disemboweling him instantly, spraying gore into the eyes of his companion, whom she cut down as he tried to wipe away the blood. She flipped her pistol around in her left hand, ignoring the way the barrel burned her already wounded palm, and slammed the butt across the temple of another assailant while her sword worked in the opposite direction, opening the throat of a fourth.

  The first four went down in as little time as it took them to reach her. She darted to the side, her footwork uncertain in the mucky street, and parried a sword that slashed at her face. She countered two more strokes and then ducked low, ramming her sword through the man’s stomach and then shoving, skewering the woman behind him.

  Without a powder trance, Vlora knew she would be considered a top-notch fighter among any company, and it became instantly clear that these attackers, while they had not been stupid enough to bring any powder with them, were not in any way prepared to fight a powder mage. She had trained her whole life as a soldier and a duelist. Her actions were cold and precise, the blade of her weapon aimed to kill or disable instantly, and she was fueled by the anger of seeing the innocent family man behind her die in his rickshaw.

  She cut down two more before the concerted effort of four of the attackers managed to halt her forward momentum, presenting a wall of blades in a narrow corridor, forcing her to retreat lest she skewer herself upon their swords. She backed up, biding her time and checking her rear to be sure she wasn’t being outflanked, waiting for one of them to make a mistake.

  Behind them, she watched a fifth scramble for the blowgun that had been dropped by one of their companions, and she cursed herself for not bringing a second pistol. She fought a rising panic, knowing she needed to break through these blades and take them down or turn and flee, but fearing the possibility of running into even more attackers.

  Vlora heard footsteps in the mud behind her and swore. She’d been outflanked. She pressed her back to a wall, holding her pistol in one hand and her sword in the other, trying to look in both directions at once.

  She caught sight of a shadow behind the Palo who recovered the blowgun. The shadow grew so suddenly she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her until the hooked tip of a boz knife suddenly jutted from the Palo’s chest. The Palo coughed, crying out, and was lifted into the air and thrown at his companions.

  The shadow became Ben Styke, wearing his old yellow cavalry jacket, his face somehow uglier and meaner in the shadows of the gas lanterns. Behind her, footsteps became louder as Olem rounded the corner, his pistol raised. He shot one of her assailants in the chest. The dual distraction was all Vlora needed and she darted forward, dispatching the three remaining Palo in as many breaths.

  Her chest heaved as she caught her breath, heart thumping from the adrenaline of the fight more than the effort. She nodded to Styke, briefly touched Olem’s shoulder, then headed over to the rickshaw, where Devin-Tallis had already gone still. She plucked the dart from his neck, broke it between her fingers, and cast it aside. “Poisoned,” she said, not bothering to hide the disgust in her voice.

  “Pit,” Styke breathed, surveying the line of corpses down the corridor. “You weren’t kidding when you said she could handle herself.”

  Olem came up beside Vlora, putting one hand gently on her waist. She resisted the urge to lay her head on his shoulder, her body still trembling. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m fine,” Vlora said.

  Styke took two steps toward her, squinting in the dim light as he looked her over. “Didn’t even get a scratch. Pit, remind me not to cross you.”

  “If they’d gone for me instead of my driver first, I’d be dead,” Vlora said through clenched teeth.

  “Your gala didn’t go well tonight, I take it?” Olem asked.

  “No, it went fantastic. Better than I could have hoped. I have no idea what provoked this.” She kicked one of the corpses, letting out an angry grunt.

  Beside her, Styke bent to clean his knife. He gestured to someone Vlora couldn’t see, and Celine emerged from the shadows to join him, her eyes wide at all the carnage. “This,” Styke told her gently, “is what happens when boys try to play with a woman like Lady Flint.” He stood up. “We should go,” he said. “If they’re smart, they’ll have a backup team in case they missed and your rickshaw made a run for it.”

  Vlora touched Devin-Tallis’s forehead, then nodded. Whoever ordered this, she decided, had very little time left to live. She would make sure of that.

  CHAPTER 21

  Michel waited outside the office building for Fidelis Jes to arrive. His Iron Roses kept a cool distance, none of them eager to face a Silver Rose’s foul mood, while Warsim had disappeared on another errand. Michel kept his eyes closed, his mind frantically working as he tried to come up with something—anything—to tell Jes about how his investigation wasn’t a complete failure. He’d been handed the opportunity to catch Tampo red-handed, and he had failed. Sure, he’d done all the groundwork and set himself up for that possible success. But Fidelis Jes wasn’t going to see it that way.

  What was he doing wrong? Was he not considering all the angles? Was he out of his depth? In Tampo, he was clearly dealing with a professional. But wasn’t he supposed to be a professional, too?

  “I’m a spy,” he muttered to himself. “Not a bloody investigator. This isn’t what I’m good at.”

  “You’re good at getting inside people’s heads,” he countered himself. “You’re good at knowing what people will think, and why, and when. That’s all the basic stuff an investigator needs to do, right?”

  He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “I am not an investigator. I know what people will think about me, and why and when. All that matters is keeping my cover. That’s not the case here.”

  “So,” he muttered back at himself, “what is the case?”

  “I need to know the why and when regarding their relation to what they’re doing. Not in regards to their relations with me.”

  Michel ran a hand through his hair, then tapped the side of his head with his fingers. That might be the key here. Michel was so focused on simply catching the guy that he hadn’t considered his motives. Why was Tampo doing all this? He seemed awfully organized for a revolutionary. Revolutionaries tended to be high on passion and low on critical thinking and this was certainly not the case.

  Could it be he wasn’t a revolutionary? Did he have another motive
for attempting to destabilize the country? Michel still had a copy of Sins of Empire in his pocket, and wondered whether the writing behind it was calculated to incite revolt, rather than a work of passion as he’d assumed.

  It was an intriguing thought, and it gave him an entirely new outlook on this case.

  The clop of hooves on cobbles brought Michel out of his reverie and he stiffened, watching as a carriage with a white rose on black curtains pulled up in front of him. The door was thrown open and Fidelis Jes emerged before the carriage had even come to a stop. The grand master was clearly in a foul mood, his jaw tight and eyes pinched, the collar of his immaculately pressed jacket undone. Michel knew Jes was a man of a strict schedule, and he wondered if this case was really important enough to have him out in the middle of the night like this.

  Fidelis Jes stopped in front of Michel, glancing around as if to ask where the culprit was.

  Well. No delaying the inevitable. “He slipped away, sir.”

  “Explain.”

  The one word made a bead of sweat trickle down Michel’s spine. “He’s a professional, sir. Someone with counterespionage training. He had several fail-safes in place so that we couldn’t catch him, and tonight’s raid has tipped our hand. I’m worried he’ll go deeper undercover.” Fidelis Jes opened his mouth, but Michel pushed onward with a sudden spike of confidence. “Sir, I think we’ve been going about this wrong. In light of this revelation, I don’t think we’re up against a revolutionary. I think we’re up against someone who is dispassionately trying to take down the government. My first instinct is that someone is betting against us, against our economy, and I’d like permission to make a thorough search of wealthy foreigners who have traded against our market. It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks, and all I have to do is see him in a place of business and then we’ll catch him and bring him down.”

  Fidelis Jes stared at Michel for several moments, his eyes going out of focus as if his mind was elsewhere, and he gave a brisk nod. “Intriguing, Agent Bravis. I expect you to continue your investigation immediately.”

  Michel felt like a refreshing wind had just passed through his body. Every muscle relaxed. That was it? No death threats? No anger? Just a nod and “carry on”?

  Fidelis Jes looked around at the Iron Roses and gestured for them to come closer. It was only eight or nine people, but the grand master addressed them as he might an army, with his hands clasped behind his back, chest out, sword at his side. “You’re all to report to the Millinery immediately. Every Rose is on double duty for the next week.”

  No one gave voice to the groan they must have all been holding in, but several of them shifted uncomfortably.

  Jes continued: “There has been an escape from one of the local labor camps. A dangerous war criminal by the name of Benjamin Styke. Every Iron and Bronze Rose is on alert until Styke is caught. When you report to the Millinery you will be given a description and an exhaustive report as to all his known associates. Find him. Catch him. He must be brought in alive. Dismissed.”

  The Iron Roses scattered, and Michel found himself alone with the grand master a few moments later. They remained standing in silence for several minutes while Jes looked up and down the streets, eyeing rooftops, as if considering where this dangerous criminal could be hiding.

  Michel knew the name. Pit, everyone knew the name. Colonel Styke had practically surpassed “war hero” and gone straight to “folk hero.”

  “Sir,” Michel finally ventured, “isn’t Ben Styke …”

  “He’s alive. Forget everything you know about Benjamin Styke,” Fidelis Jes said, his eyes still examining the surrounding buildings. “He is a crazed killer. He will murder anyone and anything, and he holds a grudge against the Lady Chancellor. I fear for her very safety.”

  “He’s just one man, sir.”

  Jes whirled on him, forcing Michel to step back. “Styke is his own army. Do not underestimate him. He’s older, crippled, but he will not be easy to take down.” Jes took a measured breath, before going on in a calmer voice. “Styke has the loyalty of the city’s veterans. The last thing I need is him stirring up trouble.”

  “Of course, sir. Am I … still on this investigation?”

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t you be?”

  “Well, this Styke thing seems to be important.”

  “Oh, you’ll be keeping your eyes open for Styke as well.” Jes smirked. “Your failure to catch Tampo tonight has just made your job infinitely harder, Agent Bravis. I’ve been questioning the traitorous prison officials who allowed themselves to be bribed to secure Styke’s release. It turns out they were paid off by a Mr. Tampo, Esquire. They even gave a description that matched that of your suspect.”

  All the relief felt at not having gained Jes’s ire disappeared in a single instant. Michel sagged. Not only had he not managed to capture Tampo, but now he had to face the possibility of dealing with a dangerous war criminal. Michel wasn’t an investigator, and he definitely wasn’t a fighter. If he did manage to catch up with Tampo, and Styke happened to be with him, he’d be a goner.

  He knew it, and from the smug look in Jes’s eyes, the grand master knew it, too.

  The very real prospect of a violent death was punishment for his failure.

  “You’ve made great progress in such a small amount of time,” Jes said, almost kindly. “I expect you to wrap this up quickly. Bring me Tampo and you will earn your Gold Rose. Bring me Styke as well, and I’ll be in your debt.”

  Michel watched Fidelis Jes return to his carriage and drive away. The odds had just tipped significantly against him. But the rewards … he couldn’t imagine many people had Fidelis Jes’s favor. But if he was going to catch Styke before anyone else, he’d have to be fast.

  CHAPTER 22

  Celine led Styke and their small group out of the Depths and up to Loel’s Fort, where the night was silent and all but a few Riflejack guards were in their beds. Styke followed Lady Flint into the temporary headquarters she’d set up in the old staff building and stood in the doorway, not entirely sure what to do as Flint pulled out a notepad and scratched something on it, handing it to Olem.

  “Send a messenger to Vallencian. Tell him I was attacked and my escort killed.”

  Olem took the note and slipped by Styke, and Styke put a hand on Celine’s shoulder, turning her toward the door. “Lady Flint,” he said with a nod. “Glad you got out of there. I best be going.”

  “You,” Flint said, giving him pause. “Stay.” She snatched a bottle of wine from underneath the table in the center of the room and popped the cork with her knife. “You’ve earned a drink, I think.”

  Styke hesitated. For once, he was feeling less than confident about his position. His task was to keep Flint alive, at least until Tampo gave the order, and now he wasn’t entirely sure he could kill her. She’d been ambushed by more than a dozen men and walked away without a scratch. What hope would he have in his condition, even if he caught her unawares?

  He’d have to cross that bridge when he reached it, he decided sourly. For now it was his job to get—and remain—close. He dragged a chair over to the table and sat down, pulling Celine up onto his lap.

  Flint poured three glasses of wine. They drank in silence until Olem returned, nodding, and brought his own chair up to the table. He took his glass and raised it to Flint, then to Styke.

  “My nerves are shot to shit,” she said, the words clearly directed at Olem.

  “The ambush?” Olem asked gently.

  Flint drained her first glass and poured another, reaching under the table to get a second bottle of wine. “The ambush, the powder trance—I took a whole charge at once—and then the fight. I haven’t had a call that close since the Kez Civil War.” Her eyes were cast down, her voice quiet, and she seemed suddenly vulnerable. The moment passed quickly, and she looked at Styke with steel in her eyes.

  “You looked like you were handling things fine,” Styke said. He couldn’t get those bodies out of his head. He was
used to his own path of destruction. Even back during the war he rarely saw one that compared. But pit, he found himself impressed by Flint’s. He thought about Taniel Two-shot, fighting out in the swamps, picking off Kez Privileged like they were bottles on a fence. “Powder mages,” he said softly, a curse under his breath.

  Flint leaned over, topping off Styke’s glass. “Powder mages aren’t invincible,” she said, frowning. Styke noticed that her hand was still trembling, and remembered that she was barely thirty years old. He considered soldiers her age practically kids, even back when he was one. “We can be outflanked, overwhelmed, or taken by surprise. If you and Olem hadn’t arrived they might have done all three and finished me off.”

  “We got lucky,” Olem said. “We heard your pistol go off. We were only the next street over.”

  “Though I would have expected you to turn and run against so many men,” Styke added.

  Flint frowned. “They’d killed him. My escort. He was a good man—funny, clever, interesting. When something like that happens, instinct kicks in. I barely have control of myself. It feels like I blink, and then there are bodies.” She met his eyes. “They call you Mad Ben Styke. Was it ever like that for you? The anger?”

  Styke looked down at his glass. Pit, soldier talk. He was going to need more wine than this. He gave the glass to Celine. “Just a sip,” he said, then drained the rest and pushed it over to the bottle. Olem refilled it.

  Styke cleared his throat. “They say that some people are overtaken by a berserker rage in a battle. Their eyes mist and time seems to slow and they just kill everything that they see. I’ve heard people speculate that Field Marshal Tamas had that”—he nodded at Flint—“and that only his training kept him from being a true berserker.” He twirled his lancer’s ring with his thumb, listening to his chair creak under him as he shifted. “They called me Mad Colonel Styke because they thought a madness took me into battle. Because I made foolish charges against outrageous odds. But I’ve never had red mist. Sure, I lose my head sometimes, but when I kill, it’s deliberate. I never—” He paused. “I rarely pick a fight I don’t think I can win.”