The Guns of Empire

by Django Wexler

  She’ll handle them. Right. Marcus had reached the stairs, which extended to the first floor at right angles to the corridor. A brief glance showed him two men on the stairs themselves and four more by the front door. The scream and the clomping of his boots had alerted them, and the first two were already moving, pounding up the steps with weapons drawn. Marcus skidded to a halt at the corner of the steps, where the upstairs wall hid him from view, and clicked back the hammer on his pistol.

  He had only a moment to wait. When he heard the footsteps approach, he swung his sword around the corner at waist height, wrist jolting as it sliced through flesh and found bone. The wounded man shouted, stumbling back, and Marcus jerked his sword free and stepped around the corner. As he’d hoped, the second attacker had been forced to sidestep the first, leaving him wrong-footed. Marcus raised his pistol and shot him in the chest at point-blank range, so close that even left-handed he couldn’t miss. The man staggered and fell bonelessly down the stairs. Marcus dropped the pistol and slid back behind the wall, just ahead of a pair of shots from below that knocked plaster from the opposite wall. He heard a shot from behind him as well, but when he looked around, Sothe was fighting the last of Orlanko’s men, driving him back with neat, efficient swordplay before killing him with a thrust to the heart.

  He risked a look down the stairs. The four men at the door, along with the one he’d cut, seemed to be conferring. Marcus retreated to the anteroom, where Sothe was finishing a groaning survivor with her sword and retrieving her throwing knives.

  “That was . . .” Marcus looked around at the splayed corpses. Sothe herself bore a shallow cut on her arm and another on her hip, but seemed otherwise unharmed. “Impressive.”

  “Too slow.” She shrugged. “I’m getting old. How many left down there?”

  “Four or five. They don’t seem to be in a hurry.”

  “See if you can talk to Dorsay.”

  Marcus crouched behind the sofa, in case his voice drew a gunshot, and shouted, “Duke Dorsay? Are you all right?”

  A young, gruff male voice answered. “Who the hell is that? What’s going on out there?”

  “Orlanko’s people are trying to kill the duke,” Marcus said. “Is he hurt?”

  “I’m all right,” came an older man’s voice. “Who’s out there?”

  “Marcus d’Ivoire,” Marcus said. “Queen Raesinia sent me when we got warning of Orlanko’s attack.”

  “That goddamned snake,” Dorsay fumed. “Jeffery, get the door open.”

  “Your Grace, this could be a trick—” said the young man, who had to be one of the Life Guards.

  “Can you get out the window?” Sothe interrupted.

  “My wall-climbing days are a long way behind me,” Dorsay said. “But we might be able to knot together some bedsheets. Why?”

  “They’re coming.” She picked out a throwing knife, wiped it on her sleeve, and waited.

  Marcus heard the footsteps a moment later. It sounded like at least a half dozen men, maybe more. As the first one came into view at the top of the stairs, Sothe let the blade fly, a perfect throw that sank into the attacker’s throat just above his collarbone. He fell, and it was only a moment later that Marcus registered he’d been dressed in tight-fitting black, like Sothe, and had worn a multifaceted mask that glittered in the light of the lanterns.

  Two more men, in similar costumes, leapt over the corpse without a pause and kept coming. They had long, curved swords, blades blackened to dull the sheen. Sothe hurled another knife, which caught one of them in the eye, and he tumbled to a halt, while Marcus stepped in to block the other one. Their swords met with a shivering scream of steel, and as his opponent bulled forward, Marcus lashed out with a kick to the other man’s kneecap. The masked figure stumbled, and Marcus danced away from his clumsy counterstroke and planted his saber in the man’s chest.

  “Penitents?” he said to Sothe.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Something’s wrong. What happened to the first one?”

  Marcus looked up. The first attacker was gone, Sothe’s knife lying bloody on the carpet where his corpse had been. Then, as he watched, the second body faded away, turning translucent as mist and then vanishing entirely. The third corpse, with Marcus’ sword still in its chest, vanished in the same fashion a moment later.

  Another man came around the corner, armed and dressed like all the others. He gave them a brief look, followed by an exaggerated shrug, his mask clicking. The air around him went strange, overlapping images that didn’t quite line up, like looking into a mirror spiderwebbed with cracks. For a moment there were four identical copies of the man, all staring back at Marcus, and then—

  —the odd effect was gone, and there were four identical copies of the man standing in the corridor.

  “Penitent,” Sothe said grimly.

  “Your Grace,” Marcus said, raising his sword again, “I’d hurry with those bedsheets.”

  —

  RAESINIA

  “Joanna and I should stay with you, at least,” Barely said. Joanna nodded emphatically.

  “We’ve been over this. I want you to stay in the room with Janus,” Raesinia said.

  The two women looked at each other helplessly. “But—” Barely began.

  “Winter told you to obey my orders, didn’t she?” Raesinia said.

  “She told us to protect you,” Barely said, and her companion gave another nod.

  Raesinia sighed. “Well, I’m the Queen of Vordan, and I’m telling you to obey orders. Go watch Janus, and make sure none of the others stay in the building. I want everyone at the sentry line.”

  Barely looked like she’d just sucked on a lemon, but she nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Joanna looked at Raesinia, shook her head, and then glared down at Barely. The smaller woman shrugged.

  “She’s the queen, Jo. What am I supposed to do?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Raesinia said. The two of you saved me once already. I don’t want you to get killed trying it again.

  She didn’t want anyone to get killed if she could help it. The Girls’ Own and Grenadier Guards who protected her were all outside the inn, watching every approach for the arrival of Orlanko’s hired killers. Raesinia hoped that surprise and numbers would make any fight out there a short one. And anyone in here with me is only going to end up with a slit throat. Muskets and vigilance were no match for a man who could walk through walls.

  As Barely and Joanna went reluctantly downstairs, Raesinia moved from the suite’s dining room into the small servant’s bedroom. Viera was there, wiping her gray hands carefully with a damp cloth.

  “It’s ready?” Raesinia said.

  The artillerywoman nodded. “It’s not as good as the milled stuff,” she said in her Hamveltai accent, “but I think it will serve.”

  “Good. You should get out of here before things get started.”

  “You know what will happen here?” Viera gestured around. “If you’re too close—”

  “Believe me,” Raesinia said tightly, “I understand.”

  “Be careful.” Viera picked up her mortar and pestle. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  When she was gone, too, Raesinia shut the door to the suite. She lit lanterns in the dining room and the larger bedroom, but not in the servant’s bedroom; one of the inn’s lamps hung just outside the window, though, and the furniture cast long shadows. When she was satisfied, she picked up a loaded pistol from the dining room table, took it to the large bedroom, and sat down on the bed to wait.

  It would be a laugh if, after all this, he didn’t come. It was just possible that Ionkovo would try for Janus first. Raesinia had tried to make that as difficult as possible by packing the First Consul’s rooms with soldiers, hopefully too many for even a Penitent Damned to handle. But she thought he would come for her, instead. He had me once befo
re and let me get away. Ionkovo had seemed like a proud man, and she was sure it galled him. Plus, he probably thinks I’m the easier target.

  Her heart was beating fast in spite of everything. She could face the worst threats with equanimity, provided she could see them coming; her rational mind knew she had nothing to fear from knives, pistols, or falls from the wall of a castle. But a lurking, unseen danger still managed to raise a primal response. Her mouth was very dry, and she wondered if she had time to get up for some water—

  “Hello, Raesinia.” Ionkovo’s cultured, Murnskai-accented voice was unmistakable.

  Raesinia turned and fired. Ionkovo had emerged from the shadow of a wardrobe, and at the sound of the shot he jerked back into it, darkness rippling behind him like black water. Balls of the Beast, but he’s fast. Her shot had been wide, smashing a hole in the wood paneling a good foot clear of the wardrobe. She dropped the pistol, turned, and jerked backward as a hand shot out from under the bed and closed around her wrist.

  “That’s a rude way to greet an old friend,” Ionkovo said, yanking her sideways off the bed.

  Raesinia let herself fall, trying to twist free of his grip. She got herself turned over and planted a foot in his chest, but his other hand came out from behind his back holding a long, thin knife. He brought it down with expert precision, angling it just left of her breastbone to slip between her ribs and slice clean through her heart. Raesinia felt the tip emerge from her back and bite into the wooden floor.

  “That ought to slow even you down, I think,” Ionkovo said. “Pinned like a butterfly in a case. You may not be able to die, but I imagine it’s hard to accomplish much with a spike in your heart.”

  Raesinia blinked, fighting the distant signals from her body, which wanted to tell her she was in unimaginable agony. She could feel the binding tingling all over, fighting to keep her flesh repaired as her blood went thick and stale. A spreading pool of red coated the floor underneath her, seeping down in between the floorboards.

  “It somehow feels like we’ve been here before, don’t you think?” Ionkovo was in full Penitent Damned uniform, black mask gleaming. “Last time I made the mistake of handing you over to that incompetent Maurisk. I ought to have known it wouldn’t work.”

  The best Raesinia could manage was a raspy whisper. “Your Penitents didn’t do any better.”

  “An old fool, a dullard, and a novice,” Ionkovo said dismissively. “The pontifex has always placed too much emphasis on the abilities of the demon and not enough on those of the man, in my opinion. A power like mine, while not as formidable as a brute like Twist’s might seem, is considerably more . . . subtle.” He cocked his head, reflections shifting on his mask. “Also, I guarantee no one is coming to save you this time. Ihernglass is dead by now, General d’Ivoire is walking into a trap, and I don’t sense your friend the sandstorm.”

  Marcus! Raesinia’s heart would have jumped if it hadn’t been slashed in half. She blinked slowly and managed to raise her head a few inches.

  “I don’t . . . need help . . . to deal with you.” Her vision went spotty for a moment with the effort of speech.

  “Bold words.” Ionkovo leaned forward. “We’ll see how brave you feel after a trip through the shadows.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WINTER

  Bobby recovered her tongue before Winter did. “Jane. I thought you were . . .” She hesitated, looking over at Winter. “Gone.”

  Jane looked between the two of them. “I imagine you did. Guard dead, prisoner missing. What else were you supposed to think?”

  “What happened?” Winter said. Her voice was a trembling croak. “What are you doing here?”

  “Simple enough. I didn’t escape. Ionkovo kidnapped me. He brought me here to ask questions about you. When he was done . . .” She shrugged. “They found another use for me.”

  “Winter,” Maxwell said, a note of warning in his voice, but Winter spoke over him.

  “And now you’re in charge?” Winter said. “What the hell does that mean? You’ve become one of them?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” Jane said. “It’s more accurate to say they have become one of me, if that makes any sense.” She looked over Winter’s shoulder, and her eyes widened. “Red? Is that you? I didn’t recognize you with your hair down.”

  “Jane?” Red said, stepping tentatively forward. “That’s really you?”

  “Come here and let me have a look at you.” Jane took a step forward, smiling, and looked up into Red’s eyes. There was a flash of strange, crimson light, and then Red was laughing. The big sergeant stepped away, an odd grin on her freckled face.

  “Winter,” Maxwell said. “Whoever you think that is, it isn’t her.”

  “How would you know?” Jane said. “Do you want me to tell you some secrets, Winter? Do you remember the time we stole Mistress Gormenthal’s lunch?” Her smile widened. “Or where we were the first time I got my hand under your shirt?”

  She pulled the trigger. “In Janus’ office.” Winter’s throat was very dry. “You tried to shoot me. Why?”

  “To be honest, I don’t really know,” Jane said. “It was the only way out I could think of. Maybe I thought, if we both died there, we’d be together afterward. Or maybe I was so angry and scared I just twitched.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, does it? You’re alive. I’m alive. And there’s nothing to stop us anymore.”

  “You’re not Jane, are you?” Winter said. She had been watching her old lover’s eyes. They were still green, but where they had once been bright, sparkling with her sarcastic humor, now they were as dead as cold stones. Her expression was wrong, with all of the old Jane’s swagger but none of the vulnerability underneath. “Maxwell, what have they done to her?”

  “I’m hurt,” Jane said, before the priest could speak. “I’m more than Jane, that’s all. Everything she was is still here. But now there’s also . . . something else.”

  “The Beast of Judgment,” Maxwell hissed.

  “If you say so,” Jane said. She jerked her head at the pontifex. “This oaf thought he could use me against Vhalnich. I may have encouraged him a little, I must admit.”

  “I am an arrogant, blustering idiot,” the pontifex said in a singsong voice. “I deserved everything I got.”

  “Max,” Alex hissed. “What now?”

  “Get out,” Maxwell said. “Don’t let them get close, any of them. If you can’t escape, slit your own throat.”

  “That’s a little harsh,” Jane said. “But I suppose I shouldn’t criticize.”

  Red suddenly moved, slipping behind Winter and grabbing both her arms at the elbows. Jane stepped forward, inches from Winter’s face.

  “No chance of a kiss?” she murmured. “I suppose not. But give it a moment.”

  “Winter!”

  Bobby’s shout seemed distant. Time felt like it was slowing down. Winter started to struggle, fighting Red’s overwhelmingly strong grip, but Jane’s eyes already seemed to fill the world. Deep down, in the center of her pupils, there was a tiny red spark. It grew outward, spreading like flame across paper, devouring the black and then the green and then on and through the tiny gap between them and into Winter’s body. She felt herself drawing breath for a scream, far too late—

  And one of her hands brushed Jane’s arm.

  Infernivore leapt across the gap between souls, a mad dog whose leash had finally snapped. Even as crimson light filled her eyes, she could feel her own demon surging into Jane. Through the link, she could see the Beast of Judgment, a vast, branching mass of vermillion threads, like a tangle of spiderwebs dripping fresh blood. Infernivore threw itself at the alien thing, wrapping over and around it, converting the substance of the Beast into more of itself. At the same time, the red filaments were reaching into Winter, drawing her soul into the sticky cocoon of the Beast’s embrace, ready to consum
e everything that she was and vomit up a piece of themselves that would live behind her eyes forever.

  For a long moment the two were locked together, a pair of snakes with their jaws on each other’s tails, trying to eat faster than they were eaten. Winter realized she could feel the mind of the Beast, down at the center of that mass of twisting, pulsing red. It was ancient and young, both at once, with thousands of sets of memories stretching back a dozen centuries. The pontifex was in there, and the Penitent Viper, and hundreds of others, clamoring fragments shouting in dead languages. And down at the very bottom—

  Jane? She was there; Winter could feel it. The sense of her slipped from her mental grip, like silky red hair sliding through her fingers. Jane, please!

  Winter? The Beast shifted. Jane was a part of it, but it was a part of her, more than any of the others; she had spoken the name that had called it into the world, and the ancient consciousness of the Beast had used her mind as a template for this incarnation of itself.

  I’m going to help you, Winter told her, at the center of the whirling maelstrom of demonic power. I’m going to get you out.

  No, Jane thought. There was none of the mockery that had dripped like venom from the Beast/Jane hybrid. Winter wasn’t sure deception was possible here, with mind joined directly to mind. You don’t understand. I did this for you. Everything that came between us—Mrs. Wilmore, Ganhide, Abby, Janus—they don’t matter anymore. Fate wants us to be apart, but not even fate can stand against the power of the Beast. Winter saw Jane’s familiar half smile, felt phantom arms wrapping around her. Come back to me. Please.