The Dogs of God

by Chris Kennedy

  They were so slow. He could hardly believe that he had once been as slow, had once been but an ordinary man and not the weapon of the Empire he’d become. The highmatter cut without resistance, and the last of the trio fell without a cry. Syme lingered long enough to slash his second opponent through the heart and paused to take his disruptor. He had no time to think about the carnage. He had to keep moving.

  What he would have given for a mapping drone of the sort legionnaires used in ground assaults. The little remote-piloted machine could have flown ahead and found him an exit. But he had no drones, and no accomplices anymore—it seemed—to pilot them. He was alone, and so shouldered through the first outer door he came upon and burst into a set of offices. A woman in the uniform of some low-level functionary screamed as he stumbled into the room, indigo cape covered in the blood of the guards and the twice-slain monarch. There were windows on the outer wall, tall, vertical slits that overlooked the flat roof of a side building twenty feet below.

  Perfect.

  Not slowing, Syme slashed the window with his impossibly sharp sword and punched the glass out. It tumbled down and shattered. He leaped after it. His knees ate the impact, and he winced, letting the pain go as the adrenaline squeezed more tightly on his heart. A dry wind scoured the rooftop, and he spoke once more into his terminal.

  “Lieutenant, dust off and rendezvous on my location at once! I need extraction!”

  It hadn’t been the cleanest operation in the history of his career, but then, it wasn’t meant to be. He’d known what he was getting into the moment he volunteered for the job. One last sacrifice for the greater good. At least he had succeeded, and whatever campaign the late monarch of Latarra had planned for the outer provinces would never come to pass. Without Harendotes, his little army of barbarians and merry men would fracture overnight. The Maze-city of starships that choked the river delta around this crumbling palace would fly to pieces as Normans and Extras and Imperial refugees all vied for power. If he was to die here, Syme died with the certain knowledge that he’d destroyed one great threat to the Empire. He might not have defeated the alien Cielcin, but he had prevented treasonous humanity from planting a dagger in the back of mankind’s greatest hope for survival.

  “Repeat. Rendezvous on my location. Immediate evac requested!”

  Silence.

  Syme felt certain the shuttle pilot was dead. He craned his neck, peering in the direction he was sure the shuttle lay. There was no column of smoke, no pillar of fire, no sign the shuttle was destroyed. It might still be there. It might not. He might find the shuttle intact, but all aboard it dead and gone like his guards, or find the compartment filled with the monarch’s angry men waiting to spring their trap.

  There was another way, he realized, peering out over the walls and rooftops of the monarch’s palace. There was the city. More than twenty million people, was it? He had a universal card in a pouch on his belt replete with marks enough to buy passage offworld. He could lose himself as a common laborer in the streets, blend in with the rough populace, hide out for weeks, for months if necessary. Hell, he might even be a dockworker again, as he had been when the Legion recruiters came to town so very long ago.

  He could survive. It needn’t be a suicide mission.

  The roof on which he stood overshadowed another, a low, long building that ran at right angles towards the edge of the palace compound. It was still strange that no sirens blared, no alarm bells rang nor shouts of grief or mourning to herald the death of a king. It didn’t seem right. Syme could remember the way the Chantry bells had tolled for the death of the old duke when he’d been a boy. He remembered too the pomp and parade as the old nobile’s body was floated through the streets, the way women wept and threw flowers before the gene-tailored and tame lions that pulled the wain. Perhaps they had no sentiment here. They were barbarians, after all.

  Syme started to run, unkindling his highmatter blade as he went, building up speed for the jump to carry him across and down the gap between buildings. Gunfire snapped at his heels, and, glancing back, he saw the black shapes of guards in the windows of the drum tower behind. He reached the edge of the building and leaped, sailing through yards of open air and falling down and down.

  Too far.

  He rolled as he hit the lower roof and tumbled a dozen feet. He winced as he felt the wind driven from him. It was a miracle he’d not broken a rib or one of his legs. He lay there a moment, wheezing, willing himself to stand.

  But his body would not obey.

  It took all his effort to roll onto his stomach, to get his arms under him, to take in one dry, rattling breath. He’d badly misjudged the distance to this lower roof. Stupid thing to do. A rookie’s mistake. Wheezing, he pushed himself onto his hands and knees, willing himself to breathe.

  “If you lived on this side of the water, my friend, I should be an assassin. For it would be unjust to slay you,” a voice said, “but since you live on the other side, I am a hero, and it is just.”

  Two gold-plated feet came into view, and a shadow fell across Syme from the sun. A figure in black robes stood over him, wide sleeves billowing in the gentle air. “Is that what you believe? That you’re a hero?”

  Syme swallowed a solid mouthful of air and pushed himself to his knees.

  “Im-impossible,” he said.

  He looked up into the face of the young man he had seen in his recordings. He had a nobile bearing, that couldn’t be denied, with sharp brows and a pointed nose set above hollow cheeks, and skin like burnished bronze. His eyes shone, not blue, but black. Blacker than his mane of flowing hair, blacker than the silk robes and cape he wore. Of gold were the gauntlets set upon hands, and gold too the gorget fastened about his neck. Golden also were the greaves and sabatons upon his feet, and all that metalwork was scored with runes, with hieroglyphs of an ancient language Syme neither knew nor recognized.

  “I killed you,” Syme said.

  “Twice,” Harendotes said, spreading his arms so that the golden embroidery on his sleeves was on full display, a pattern of stylized bird’s feathers. “But only the puppet I was operating. I wanted to see what you would do. I must admit, the monofilament was a surprise.”

  Syme could only stare. A puppet. He had heard these Extrasolarians could use their machines to pilot other men’s bodies. He had hardly believed it, but it seemed true. Harendotes had watched through the eyes of the old man in the throne, had spun his story about how the very man before him—young and strong—was just a holograph, a false image. Just a shade to beguile the useful idiots who served him. A useful idiot himself, Syme had believed. The old man had been a kind of projection himself, a shadow on the throne.

  “Do you really think I would admit an Imperial assassin into my presence unchecked?” the monarch asked, circling Syme where he knelt, golden hands clasped behind his back. “I knew what you were from the moment you contacted us. The Consortium.” He said the word almost like a curse. “I have refused offers from the Consortium for decades. You should have done your research.”

  Syme felt his heart sink. It was all a game to this lord of the Extrasolarians, this barbarian king. He grit his teeth. He’d allowed Syme into the very heart of his domain, allowed him to think he’d won, even left his sword where Syme was sure to retrieve it. And all to see what he would do.

  Was it some kind of sick game?

  “What happened to my men?”

  The monarch did not answer. That was answer enough.

  Still wheezing, the assassin surged to his feet. The sword was still in his hand, and the exotic material of its blade sprang into existence as fingers squeezed the trigger. He thrust the point forward like a lance, hoping to pierce the false king’s heart. He was fast, but Harendotes was faster. The monarch turned aside as smooth as water pouring and leaped away.

  “Impressive!” he said. “Your muscle acceleration is far faster than that of any ordinary man, even in your state.” He held one golden hand out, keeping the other clenched beh
ind his back like a gentleman inviting a lady to dance. “Or am I wrong?”

  Syme slashed at the king instead. Harendotes bent backwards like a reed, and the blade whistled through the space he had occupied mere instants before. The assassin pressed his advantage, bringing his sword around and down like a headman’s ax. The king twisted on one foot and flipped himself aside, pirouetting through the air like a fire dancer from far-flung Jadd. He landed neatly on both feet, one arm still clamped behind his back. Was it fury or frustration that made Syme scream? He lashed out at the warrior king, but Calen the Conqueror leaped away, backpedaling over yards of open rooftop. Highmatter could cut anything. All he had to do was land a hit. One hit. But the barbarian king was insubstantial as smoke, his movements effortless. Everywhere Syme’s blade went, Harendotes was not, and yet he kept his moves restrained, minute, so tightly controlled that each slash of the assassin’s blade skated by with little room to spare.

  Wheeling back, Syme brought the blade around for another thrust to skewer the other man. He lunged. There was no way Harendotes could escape this time.

  Syme didn’t see the other sword until it was too late. Blue-white liquid metal coalesced in the air between them, and the two swords clashed with a whisper and the magnetic tang of ozone.

  Calen Harendotes bared his teeth in an animal’s impersonation of a smile. Slowly, contemptuously, he pressed forward. He lashed out with his weapon and struck Syme in the leg. The blow was careful. Precise. Painless. He did not remove Syme’s leg as he might have done, only scored it, cut through skin and sinew to notch the bone before he drew it out again. Blood sheeted down the assassin’s thigh, and he fell to one knee. The pain rushed in then, white and sharp enough to blur his vision.

  The monarch caught him by the chin with his free hand and squeezed. A thrill of religious terror washed over Syme, for the golden fingers on his face were not the fingers of any human hand. They were skeletal things, and metal to the bone. Electrum over steel. Both of Calen Harendotes’ arms were metal to the shoulder beneath his robes. How much of his human flesh had been replaced Syme never knew, and he wondered if the gorget at his throat were not also a part of him.

  Desperate, he tried to hew at his opponent, blade raised in one last clumsy, desperate attempt to kill the king. Calen Harendotes’ own sword vanished as quickly and subtly as it had appeared, dissolving into naught but vapor as he seized Syme by the wrist and held his sword at bay. Metal fingers cut into Syme’s flesh. Blood welled up and soaked his sleeve as the monarch bent all his strength upon him. Syme fancied he could feel the whirr and grind of servos in the creature’s arms and knew his time had come.

  This was not how he wanted it to end. Not here. Not like this.

  That was when he remembered the disruptor. He’d taken a disruptor off one of Calen’s guards. In was still there, still in the hip pocket of his robe! He reached for it.

  Calen Harendotes slammed a knee up into his chin and let him go.

  Syme flew back, skidding across the rooftop, amazed the blow hadn’t broken his neck. Rolling over, he spat. It was red. He’d bitten his tongue, and more than one of his teeth felt chipped.

  “I must admit,” the monarch said, “I’m disappointed. I’ve wondered when the Empire would make its move…but I expected more.” He approached slowly, armor clinking beneath his robes with every step. “A lone assassin—no matter how augmented—I’m almost insulted.” He raised a hand, and Syme saw the rustling in his sleeve as half-seen mechanisms slid the sword hilt back into his golden hand. “They should have sent a legion.”

  Defiant to the last, Syme raised his stolen disruptor. He fired.

  The shot flashed uselessly against Calen’s shield.

  Harendotes did not smile. He stamped on Syme’s sword hand, grinding the fingers beneath all his considerable weight. Syme winced and cried out as his fingers broke like twigs. He released the sword.

  “Hush now,” the king said, crouching over him like a concerned friend. “Careful. Careful.” Gold fingers seized Syme by the back of his head and pulled him into an almost seated position. The king knelt beside him and held him with superhuman strength. Syme’s vision blurred, and for a moment he saw double. Two of Calen the Conqueror knelt over him. He blinked the illusion away. Calen Harendotes prodded him in the chest with the emitter end of his unkindled sword. “Are you listening, M. Syme?”

  “Kill me and have done,” the assassin said, baring bloody teeth.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” the monarch said. “I want you to deliver a message.” He yanked Syme’s head back by the hair, making the other man sputter and gasp with pain. Syme felt his scalp tear and bit back a cry. “Tell your Imperial master that I want nothing of his war or his Empire. Tell him I’ve a war all my own.” Harendotes stood, dragging Syme up with him, lifting the broken assassin from the rooftop with all the ease of a child lifting a doll. Syme’s feet left the ground, his disruptor dropping from nerveless fingers. “Tell him, if he insists on sending his assassins, I will return them in pieces and send my own. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. Head for head.”

  And with that, he kindled his blade.

  Syme saw it flash just beneath his chin, heard something wet and hollow slap the ground. His vision darkened, and all he knew was cold.

  * * *

  He awoke to the sound of clocks ticking. There must have been hundreds of them, each subtly out of sync. Syme forced open bleary eyes. He felt as though he’d just awakened from cryonic fugue, his body sluggish and numb from decades of travel between the stars.

  The room around was all crystal and black glass, decorated with timepieces of all descriptions: wood and brass, glass and neon, digital and analog and solar. The noise of them was deafening, rhythmic but without melody.

  He must have been put in fugue. There were wires dangling across his vision, and the soft chime of medical diagnostics beeping in time with the ticking clocks. He didn’t remember being put in fugue. He remembered…

  “Harendotes!”

  Mocking laughter rang out. “He’s awake!” He knew that voice. Why did he know that voice? A round moon of a face floated into view, sallow-skinned and soft featured in its cowl of knurled black metal. It was the grubby captain, Zelaz. The strangely fetal creature spread its short arms and smiled a smile that did not touch his metal eyes. “You’re one of us now!”

  “What?” Syme managed to say, throat dry.

  The hooded back figure of the majordomo, Oneiros, loomed behind him, not speaking.

  Zelaz laughed again, “I think it’s an improvement!” His smile was wider than any human smile ought to be. “See?” The floating man extruded a metal arm and seized something off the table to Syme’s right. It was an antique hand mirror, its frame and handle fashioned of bone. He held it up for the assassin’s use

  Syme’s stomach dropped. Or it would have done…if he had a stomach. His head was nestled on a bed of blue velvet, an iron cuff about the base of his ragged neck, the bottom studded with wires and hoses, some red, some blue, still others translucent and filled with a milky substance wholly unlike blood.

  He screamed, and the noise of it was not quite like the familiar sound of his voice. It was higher, thinner, alien in his own ears. He kept screaming; he screamed until he felt sure there should be no air left in his lungs, but he had no lungs, and whatever machine it was that provided him with air to speak did not pause to breathe. He screamed until he choked instead, screamed until his throat was raw. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. And yet…and yet he remembered the monarch’s sword, the way the darkness and the cold crept in.

  Harendotes had cut off his head. Right after he’d said he had a message for the Emperor. Calen Harendotes had kept his word: he had not killed his assassin.

  Tell your Imperial master I want nothing of his war, he’d said. Tell him I’ve a war all my own. What war? Against whom? For what? Syme shut his eyes, leaning on these questions like a crutch. They gave him focus, grounded him in a w
orld gone mad.

  Mad.

  They would kill him when he returned to Forum, his own people. He was a horror now, a demoniac polluted by machines. He would never walk again, or stand. He could serve in only one way, and only once. He was to be a warning, a message to the Holy Sollan Emperor.

  Stay away.

  The light changed, and Syme opened his eyes. The majordomo loomed over him, his silvery hands on the lid of the machine that kept Syme’s head alive. For an instant, Syme thought he saw the glint of a single, red eye beneath the majordomo’s hood.

  “Give our regards to His Radiance, the Emperor,” Oneiros said, and shut the lid over Syme’s face.

  Then there was nothing but Dark.

  * * * * *

  Christopher Ruocchio Bio

  Christopher Ruocchio is the author of The Sun Eater, a space opera fantasy series, as well as the Assistant Editor at Baen Books, where he has co-edited four anthologies. He is a graduate of North Carolina State University, where he studied English Rhetoric and the Classics. Christopher has been writing since he was eight and sold his first novel, Empire of Silence, at twenty-two. To date, his books have been published in five languages.

  Christopher lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, Jenna. He may be found on both Facebook and Twitter with the handle ‘TheRuocchio.’

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  About Chris Kennedy

  A Webster Award winner and three-time Dragon Award finalist, Chris Kennedy is a Science Fiction/Fantasy/Young Adult author, speaker, and small-press publisher who has written over 25 books and published more than 100 others. Chris’ stories include the “Occupied Seattle” military fiction duology, “The Theogony” and “Codex Regius” science fiction trilogies, stories in the “Four Horsemen,” “Fallen World,” and “In Revolution Born” universes and the “War for Dominance” fantasy trilogy. Get his free book, “Shattered Crucible,” at his website, https://chriskennedypublishing.com.