by Sam Sykes
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Sam Sykes
Excerpt from The Rage of Dragons copyright © 2017 by Evan Winter
Excerpt from The Throne of the Five Winds copyright © 2019 by Lilith Saintcrow
Author photograph by Libbi Rich
Cover design by Lauren Panepinto
Cover illustration by Jeremy Wilson
Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Map copyright © 2019 by Tim Paul
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sykes, Sam, 1984– author.
Title: Seven blades in black / Sam Sykes.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Orbit , Hachette Book Group, 2019. | Series: The Grave of Empires ; book 1
Identifiers: LCCN 2018049174 | ISBN 9780316363433 (trade pbk.) | ISBN 9781549195020 (downloadable audiobook) | ISBN 9780316363457 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316363426 (library ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.Y545 S48 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049174
ISBNs: 978-0-316-36343-3 (trade paperback), 978-0-316-36345-7 (ebook)
E3-20190301-JV-NF-ORI
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
One: Hightower
Two: Rin’s Sump
Three: The Scar
Four: Hightower
Five: The Scar
Six: Lowstaff
Seven: Lowstaff
Eight: Lowstaff
Nine: Lowstaff
Ten: Hightower
Eleven: Lowstaff
Twelve: Elsewhere
Thirteen: Stark’s Mutter
Fourteen: Stark’s Mutter
Fifteen: Stark’s Mutter
Sixteen: Stark’s Mutter
Seventeen: Stark’s Mutter
Eighteen: Hightower
Nineteen: The Scar
Twenty: The Scar
Twenty-One: The Scar
Twenty-Two: Yental River
Twenty-Three: The Weary Mother
Twenty-Four: The Weary Mother
Twenty-Five: The Weary Mother
Twenty-Six: The Weary Mother
Twenty-Seven: The Weary Mother
Twenty-Eight: Hightower
Twenty-Nine: The Scar
Thirty: The Husks
Thirty-One: Vigil
Thirty-Two: Hightower
Thirty-Three: Vigil
Thirty-Four: Somewhere Dark
Thirty-Five: Vigil
Thirty-Six: Mines of Vigil
Thirty-Seven: The Redway
Thirty-Eight: The Redway
Thirty-Nine: The Redway
Forty: Lastlight
Forty-One: Lastlight
Forty-Two: Lastlight
Forty-Three: Grandma Athaka’s Dumplings
Forty-Four: Somewhere Dark
Forty-Five: Lastlight
Forty-Six: Lastlight
Forty-Seven: Sewers of Lastlight
Forty-Eight: Sewers of Lastlight
Forty-Nine: Hightower
Fifty: Long Ago and Far Away
Fifty-One: Hightower
Fifty-Two: Sewers of Lastlight
Fifty-Three: Fort Dogsjaw
Fifty-Four: Lastlight
Fifty-Five: The Scar
Fifty-Six: Lowstaff
Fifty-Seven: Lowstaff
Fifty-Eight: Lowstaff
Fifty-Nine: Lowstaff
Sixty: Lowstaff
Sixty-One: Hightower
Sixty-Two: The Scar
Acknowledgments
Extras
Meet the Author
A Preview of The Rage of Dragons
A Preview of The Throne of the Five Winds
By Sam Sykes
Orbit Newsletter
For the readers who wouldn’t stay down.
ONE
HIGHTOWER
Everyone loved a good execution.
From the walls of Imperial Cathama to the farthest reach of the Revolution, there was no citizen of the Scar who could think of a finer way to spend an afternoon than watching the walls get painted with bits of dissidents. And behind the walls of Revolutionary Hightower that day, there was an electricity in the air felt by every citizen.
Crowds gathered to watch the dirt, still damp from yesterday’s execution, be swept away from the stake. The firing squad sat nearby, polishing their gunpikes and placing bets on who would hit the heart of the poor asshole who got tied up today. Merchants barked nearby, selling everything from refreshments to souvenirs so people could remember this day where everyone got off work for a few short hours to see another enemy of the Revolution be strung up and gunned down.
Not like there was a hell of a lot else to do in Hightower lately.
For her part, Governor-Militant Tretta Stern did her best to ignore all of it: the crowds gathering beneath her window outside the prison, their voices crowing for blood, the wailing children and the laughing men. She kept her focus on the image in the mirror as she straightened her uniform’s blue coat. Civilians could be excused such craven bloodlust. Officers of the Revolution answered a higher call.
Her black hair, severely short-cropped and oiled against her head, was befitting an officer. Jacket cinched tight, trousers pressed and belted, saber at her hip, all without a trace of dust, lint, or rust. And most crucially, the face that had sent a hundred foes to the grave with a word stared back at her, unflinching.
One might wonder what the point in getting dressed up for an execution was; after all, it wasn’t like the criminal scum who would be buried in a shallow grave in six hours would give a shit. But being an officer of the Revolution meant upholding certain standards. And Tretta hadn’t earned her post by being slack.
She took a moment to adjust the medals on her lapel before leaving her quarters. Two guards fired off crisp salutes before straightening their gunpikes and marching exactly three rigid paces behind her. Morning sunlight poured in through the windows as they marched down the stairs to Cadre Command. Guards and officers alike called to attention at her passing, raising arms as they saluted. She offered a cursory nod in response, bidding them at ease as she made her way to the farthest door of the room.
The guard stationed there glanced up. “Governor-Mi
litant,” he acknowledged, saluting.
“Sergeant,” Tretta replied. “How have you found the prisoner?”
“Recalcitrant and disrespectful,” he said. “The prisoner began the morning by hurling the assigned porridge at the guard detail, spewing several obscenities, and making forceful suggestions as to the professional and personal conduct of the guard’s mother.” He sniffed, lip curling. “In summation, more or less what we’d expect from a Vagrant.”
Tretta spared an impressed look. Considering the situation, she had expected much worse.
She made a gesture. The guard complied, unlocking the massive iron door and pushing it open. She and her escorts descended into the darkness of Hightower’s prison, and the silence of empty cells greeted her.
Like all Revolutionary outposts, Hightower had been built to accommodate prisoners: Imperium aggressors, counterrevolutionaries, bandit outlaws, and even the occasional Vagrant. Unlike most Revolutionary outposts, Hightower was far away from any battleground in the Scar and didn’t see much use for its cells. Any captive outlaw tended to be executed in fairly short order for crimes against the Revolution, as the civilians tended to become restless without the entertainment.
In all her time stationed at Hightower, Tretta had visited the prison exactly twice, including today. The first time had been to offer an Imperium spy posing as a bandit clemency in exchange for information. Thirty minutes later, she put him in front of the firing squad. Up until then, he’d been the longest-serving captive in Hightower.
Thus far, her current prisoner had broken the record by two days.
The interrogation room lay at the very end of the row of cells, another iron door flanked by two guards. Both fired off a salute as they pulled open the door, its hinges groaning.
Twenty feet by twenty feet, possessed of nothing more than a table with two chairs and a narrow slit of a window by which to catch a beam of light, the interrogation room was little more than a slightly larger cell with a slightly nicer door. The window, set high up near the ceiling, afforded no ventilation and the room was stifling hot.
Not that you’d know it from looking at the prisoner.
A woman—perhaps in her late twenties, Tretta suspected—sat at one end of the table. Dressed in dirty trousers and boots to match, the sleeves and hem of her white shirt cut to bare the tattoos racing down her forearms and most of the great scar that wended its way from her collarbone down to her belly; it was the sort of garish garb you’d expect to find on a Vagrant. Her hair, Imperial white, was shorn roughly on the sides and tied back in an unruly tail. And despite the suffocating heat, she was calm, serene, and pale as ice.
There was nothing about this woman that Tretta didn’t despise.
She didn’t look up as the Governor-Militant entered, paid no heed to the pair of armed men trailing behind her. Her hands, manacled together, rested patiently atop the table. Even when Tretta took a seat across from her, she hardly seemed to notice. The prisoner’s eyes, pale and as blue as shallow water, seemed to be looking somewhere else. Her face, thin and sharp and marred by a long scar over her right eye, seemed unperturbed by her imminent gruesome death.
That galled Tretta more than she would have liked to admit.
The Governor-Militant leaned forward, steepling her fingers in front of her, giving the woman a chance to realize what a world of shit she was in. But after a minute of silence, she merely held out one hand. A sheaf of papers appeared there a moment later, thrust forward by one of her guards. She laid it out before her and idly flipped through it.
“I won’t tell you that you can save yourself,” she said after a time. “An officer of the Revolution speaks only truths.” She glanced up at the woman, who did not react. “Within six hours, you’ll be executed for crimes against the Glorious Revolution of the Fist and Flame. Nothing you can say will change this fact. You deserve to die for your crimes.” She narrowed her eyes. “And you will.”
The woman, at last, reacted. Her manacles rattled a little as she reached up and scratched at the scars on her face.
Tretta sneered and continued. “What you can change,” she said, “is how quickly it goes. The Revolution is not beyond mercy.” She flipped to a page, held it up before her. “In exchange for information regarding the events of the week of Masens eleventh through twentieth, up to and including the massacre of the township of Stark’s Mutter, the destruction of the freehold of Lowstaff, and the disappearance of Revolutionary Low Sergeant Cavric Proud, I am willing to guarantee, on behalf of the Cadre, a swift and humane death.”
She set the paper aside, leaned forward. The woman stared just to the left of Tretta’s gaze.
“A lot of people are dead because of you,” Tretta said. “One of our soldiers is missing because of you. Before these six hours are up and you’re dead and buried, two things are going to happen: I’m going to find out precisely what happened and you’re going to decide whether you go by a single bullet or a hundred blades.” She laid her hands flat on the table. “What you say next will determine how much blood we see today. Think very carefully before you speak.”
At this, the woman finally looked into Tretta’s eyes. No fear there, she looked calm and placid as ever. And when she spoke, it was weakly.
“May I,” she said, “have a drink?”
Tretta blinked. “A drink.”
The woman smiled softly at her manacled hands. “It’s hot.”
Tretta narrowed her eyes but made a gesture all the same. One of her guards slipped out the door, returning a moment later with a jug and a glass. He filled it, slid it over to the prisoner. She took it up and sipped at it, smacked her lips, then looked down at the glass.
“The fuck is this?” she asked.
Tretta furrowed her brow. “Water. What else would it be?”
“I was figuring gin or something,” she said.
“You asked for water.”
“I asked for a drink,” the woman shot back. “With all the fuss you’re making about how you’re going to kill me, I thought you’d at least send me out with something decent. Don’t I get a final request?”
Tretta’s face screwed up in offense. “No.”
The woman made a pouting face. “I would in Cathama.”
“You’re not in Cathama,” Tretta snarled. “You’re not anywhere near the Imperium and the only imperialist scum within a thousand miles are all buried in graves beside the one I intend to put you in.”
“Yeah, you’ve been pretty clear on that,” the woman replied, making a flippant gesture. “Crimes against the Revolution and so on. Not that I’d ever call you a liar, madam, but are you sure you’ve got the right girl? There’s plenty of scum in the Scar who must have offended you worse than me.”
“I am certain.” Tretta seized the papers, flipped to a page toward the front. “Prisoner number fifteen-fifteen-five, alias”—she glared over the paper at the woman—“Sal the Cacophony.”
Sal’s lip curled into a crooked grin. She made as elegant a bow as one could when manacled and sitting in a chair.
“Madam.”
“Real identity unknown, place of birth unknown, hometown unknown,” Tretta continued, reading from the paper. “Professed occupation: bounty hunter.”
“I prefer ‘manhunter.’ Sounds more dramatic.”
“Convicted—recently—of murder in twelve townships, arson in three freeholds, unlawful possession of Revolutionary Relics, heresy against Haven, petty larceny—”
“There was nothing petty about that larceny.” She reached forward. “Let me see that sheet.”
“—blasphemy, illegal use of magic, kidnapping, extortion, and so on and so on and so on.” Tretta slammed the paper down against the table. “In short, everything I would expect from a common Vagrant. And like a common Vagrant, I expect not a damn soul in the Scar is going to shed a tear over what puts you in the ground. But what makes you different is that you’ve got the chance to do something vaguely good before you die, which is a sight more t
han what your fellow scum get before the birds pick their corpses clean.”
She clenched her jaw, spat her next words. “So, if you’ve got any decency left to your name, however fake it might be, you’ll tell me what happened. In Stark’s Mutter, in Lowstaff, and to my soldier, Cavric Proud.”
Sal pursed her lips, regarded Tretta through an ice-water stare. She stiffened in her chair and Tretta matched her pose. The two women stared each other down for a moment, as though either of them expected the other to tear out a blade and start swinging.
As it was, Tretta nearly did just that when Sal finally broke the silence.
“Have you seen many Vagrants dead, madam?” she asked, voice soft.
“Many,” Tretta replied, terse.
“When they died, what did they say?”
Tretta narrowed her eyes. “Cursing, mostly. Cursing the Imperium they served, cursing the luck that sent them to me, cursing me for sending them back to the hell that spawned them.”
“I guess no one ever knows what their last words will be.” Sal traced a finger across the scar over her eye, her eyes fixed on some distant spot beyond the walls of her cell. “But I know mine won’t be cursing.” She clicked her tongue. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, madam, about Lowstaff, about Cavric, everything. I’ll give you everything you want and you can put a bullet in my head or cut it off or have me torn apart by birds. I won’t protest. All I ask is one thing.”
Tretta tensed and reached for her saber as Sal leaned across the table. And a grin as long and sharp as a blade etched itself across her face.
“Remember my last words.”
Tretta didn’t achieve her rank by indulging prisoners, let alone ones as vile as a Vagrant. She achieved it through the support and respect of the men and women who saluted her every morning. And she didn’t get that by letting their fates go unknown.
And so, for the sake of them and the Revolution she served, she nodded. And the Vagrant leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
“It started,” she said softly, “with the last rain.”
TWO
RIN’S SUMP
You ever want to know what a man is made of, you do three things.
First, you see what he does when the weather turns nasty.
