Authors: Kelly McCullough
Broken Blade (15 page)
Fuck, Elite.
“Okay, I’m still not seeing where I come in,” I said.
Meanwhile, Triss started doing the routine where he marches invisible centipedes up and down my back.
“I thought you might want to play ear for me. Outside your normal line, I know, but it’s clean, and you’re a smart player. The noble pressure means I need to get this one done quick, and that calls for a wide net. If you hear anything I might want to know on this one, I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Now that sounds like . . . Oh, shit.”
The door of the Spinnerfish had just opened.
“What is it?” asked Fei.
“Your Elite colonel, skinny little quink with a bit of a limp?”
“That’s him.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Well, he’s about to join us.”
In the moment before Fei turned in her seat and waved to the colonel, I saw the faintest trace of fear ripple through her eyes. It was erased an instant later by the adamantine nerves that had made her such a power in Tien’s shadow trades, but it was there.
Blade training or not, I started to sweat.
8
Physically,
the colonel did not impress, but he practically burned with magic. Seething light danced around him in wild patterns of oranges and browns for eyes that could see it, a network of active and preset spells that must cost him hours every day to maintain. One thick rope of fiery orange looped around his left wrist and plunged from there into the floor like a fall of molten iron from a blacksmith’s crucible or a leash for hell’s own hound.
the colonel did not impress, but he practically burned with magic. Seething light danced around him in wild patterns of oranges and browns for eyes that could see it, a network of active and preset spells that must cost him hours every day to maintain. One thick rope of fiery orange looped around his left wrist and plunged from there into the floor like a fall of molten iron from a blacksmith’s crucible or a leash for hell’s own hound.
I forced my eyes not to follow its trail down into the earth, not to look for the colonel’s buried familiar at the other end of that spell, his stone dog. Because Aral the jack was no mage, and Aral the Blade rated a prominent place on the Elite’s death roster. Though the colonel didn’t seem to be aware of me in any way, I knew that he had seen who sat with Fei and that he would be watching me too-too close. On my back, Triss’s utter lack of movement made a presence of absence as he played at being nothing more than a shadow.
I kept my gaze fixed on the man’s feet, expressing deference in expression and posture, and I sweated. The Elite had accounted for more Blades than any other organization in our history. They were nearly as good with the weapons of the body as we were, and much better where it came to magic. But more than that, they had the stone dogs.
Like the statues that guarded Zhan’s temples come to life, they stood five feet at the shoulder with thick, strong bodies, and heads like lions. The stone dogs could cut the earth like sharks slicing through clear water. Softer than granite but harder than sandstone, they were fanatically loyal to their Elite companions and to Zhan’s rightful ruler. They had killed at least two of the three Blades who died trying for Ashvik VI before my knife spilled royal blood and forever tied me to the name of Kingslayer.
As the colonel made his slow and careful way toward our table, I used the edges of my vision to study his face. Thin and pinched, marked by long pain and the fanaticism endemic to the Elite. An ugly and familiar expression on a stranger’s face . . . No, I suddenly realized as he got closer, a familiar face, if you can call a moment’s frantic meeting ten years in the past grounds for familiarity.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I recognized the colonel though I prayed to lost Namara’s memory that he wouldn’t recognize me. I had last seen his face on the night I killed a king. Of all the trouble I ran into that night, the worst was a young lieutenant of the Elite.
Dressed and masked in grays and wearing my shadow as a cloak, I had seen him before he saw me. I’d been so proud then, filled with youth’s ignorance—for I was younger even than the lieutenant—convinced of the approval of my goddess and flushed with thoughts of success. Certain that I was the best there’d ever been, I’d wanted no dead guards staining my record of a clean kill on the king. I’d tried to slip past him unseen, but the hall was too brightly lit, and the darkness that concealed me also betrayed my presence.
He lunged at me, missing his thrust and leaving himself open to a low return as Triss shifted one way and I the other to confuse his aim. That and his position in the Elite made him a fair target. None of Namara’s servants would have faulted me for killing him, but I wanted no other arrows showing on the butt to distract from a perfect bull’s-eye on Ashvik. Instead of aiming for an artery, I’d thrust for the big nerve cluster where thigh met groin.
Fool.
The lieutenant went down screaming as my goddess-blessed sword punched through his wards and went deep. I spun away, then used the wall as a backstop and launched myself high over the body in a bit of overfancy and frankly showoffish footwork. That jump was an arrogance that saved my life when his stone dog came up through the floor clawing and biting. The dog shredded my boot and carved bloody furrows in my left calf. I bore the scars to this day and counted it light payment for the lesson driven home.
You can never let your pride trump your professionalism. Not if you want to live.
In combat, you have to sort people into two categories. There are targets, and there’s everybody else, and you kill the targets. No exceptions. I’d forgotten that then and it had nearly gotten me killed. Now, as the colonel came closer, moving with a limp I’d given him, I wondered if that “nearly” was about to be removed from the record. If so, it would make for a bitter coincidence though perhaps a not wholly surprising one.
There were never more than a few score of the Elite to start with, the familiar-paired sorcerers who made up the officer and operative class of the Crown Guard. Most of those stayed close to the king’s person and the capital, though a few were assigned permanently to Vangzien and the summer palace or Anyang, where special winter courts were sometimes held.
But then the colonel had arrived at our table, and I was out of time for thinking. I moved my gaze from his boots to the tabletop and kept it there. The effort of keeping my shoulders hunched and submissive instead of rolling them into a loosened state of readiness felt like a stone weight pressing down on my mind and back.
“Captain Fei,” said the colonel, his tone clipped and contemptuous, more indictment than greeting.
“Colonel Deem.” Fei lowered her head in something halfway between the nod of an equal and the bow of an inferior.
“Any news?”
“Not yet.” Fei sniffed and tilted her head my way. “I’ve just been making inquiries while I waited for you to arrive.”
“Is this a person of interest, then?” Deem seemed to really look at me for the first time.
Fei barked a laugh that sounded more than a little false to me. “No, Aral’s just a broken-down jack I occasionally employ for odd jobs. I thought he might have heard something that wouldn’t have risen to the top of the shadows yet.”
“Aral?” Deem stepped even closer, and I could see the network of active spells that enclosed him shift and brighten, ready for action. “That’s a very unlucky name.”
Breathe, Aral.
To keep itchy hands from reaching for a knife or a sword, I rolled my whiskey glass between my palms, breathing deep of the rich smoky aroma released by the heat and motion.
To keep itchy hands from reaching for a knife or a sword, I rolled my whiskey glass between my palms, breathing deep of the rich smoky aroma released by the heat and motion.
“Tell me about it.” I let my very real nerves color my voice. “I was born under an unlucky star, which is why my little brother ended up with the shop in Emain Wast, and I ended up doing shit work a thousand miles from home.” I knocked back the last half of my drink in a single swallow, barely tasting it.
“Fell in with the wrong crowd,” I continued, babbling intentionally, though I still didn’t look up. “Started taking the kind of jobs that don’t make a man proud. Got in a fight over a woman. Knives. Won it, too, nearly killed the guy. Turned out he was a noble’s son. When the bailiffs came after me, I started running. Didn’t stop till I hit the fucking ocean.” I waved vaguely toward the docks.
Before I could say more, Deem turned very deliberately back to Fei. “And this is the sort of person you deal with on a regular basis?”
“My job doesn’t leave a lot of time for sipping chilled wine with the highborn in the palace,” replied Fei, her voice acid. Then she got up and gestured toward the back of the Spinnerfish. “Come on, I’ve got a private booth where we can talk.”
As Deem started to walk away, Fei turned that curious look on me again, and I knew I’d slipped a second time. Maybe by making my sob story a little too smooth and a little too easy to reconcile with what I’d told her earlier. I’d been so focused on Deem, I’d forgotten the quality of my secondary audience. Master Olen would have had very hard words for a cover story that didn’t layer properly for
all
my listeners, and the fact that I’d had to cook it up on the spot wouldn’t have excused me. I should have remembered that Fei was sharp enough to notice things like how well you lied.
all
my listeners, and the fact that I’d had to cook it up on the spot wouldn’t have excused me. I should have remembered that Fei was sharp enough to notice things like how well you lied.
In my line of work, it’s much harder to appear bad at things you do well and often more important.
But worrying about it now was like stopping to sharpen your knife
after
you’d already made the sloppy cut. I waited just long enough for the curtain that hid the passage to the private booths to stop moving. Then I made a show of finding my bottle empty and getting up and heading for the door. I’d wanted to learn more about Maylien, but this was no longer the time or the place for it, and I didn’t think Erk would miss my business all that much. I had no doubt I was high on his list of least favorite customers at the moment, between the Kadeshis and Fei coming in wearing her city-watch hat instead of the shadow-captain one.
after
you’d already made the sloppy cut. I waited just long enough for the curtain that hid the passage to the private booths to stop moving. Then I made a show of finding my bottle empty and getting up and heading for the door. I’d wanted to learn more about Maylien, but this was no longer the time or the place for it, and I didn’t think Erk would miss my business all that much. I had no doubt I was high on his list of least favorite customers at the moment, between the Kadeshis and Fei coming in wearing her city-watch hat instead of the shadow-captain one.
Actually, that made for an interesting study in Erk’s ethics. I had no doubt that Erk would have left me hanging without a warning if Fei’d had shadowside reasons for asking after whoever ghosted those Kadeshis. It was only the fact that the captain’s attention was official watch business that made Erk give me a shout. Shadowside was us. Sunside was them.
When I hit the street, the sun was already yawning, so I went up a nearby wall and looked around for a place to lie up out of the wind while I waited for full dark. The process made various cuts and bruises sing out for my attention. I found a temporary snug in a steeply slanted niche between two battered dormers on the lee side of a roof. A onetime temple to Calren the Taleteller, first and former Emperor of Heaven, now deceased. It was better built than most of the buildings in the area.
I wedged myself into the gap and settled down to think through my next move. Fish was clearly off my menu for the next couple of days, and I really didn’t want to spend any time at the Gryphon, on the off chance that my enemies hadn’t marked it yet. There were a couple of other taverns I could try if I wanted to trail a bit more of my blood in the water. But after my chat with Fei and the subsequent dance with Deem, I felt there were way too many sharks swimming around at the moment to make that a good idea.
I needed solid information about Maylien and House Marchon. Especially if the royal baroness who had Deem chewing on Fei’s ass turned out to be Marchon. I didn’t remember Marchon having any ties to the royal house. Nothing beyond the way the old baron’s sister had catered to Ashvik’s need to bed girls half his age, that is. But perhaps things had changed. I had to find out what had happened there.
If I could get the information someplace quiet and far enough from my regular haunts, I could use the whole thing as an opportunity for a fadeout and make the trip serve double duty. I knew just the spot, but I couldn’t go there without making a brief stop at my main snug in the Gryphon’s stable. That was a problem, both because I didn’t want to mark the Gryphon and because I didn’t want to lead them on to my next destination if they had.
If I really wanted to make a fade, I had to find some way to break my trail to the Gryphon both coming and going, and that was a skip that would run a whole lot smoother if I had any idea how they were trailing me in the first . . . Wait. Could it really be that simple?
I turned to where my shadow lay along the roof slates, almost invisible now in the twilight. “Triss, you can . . . I don’t know, is ‘smell’ the right word for what you did with Zass up in the Old Mews?”
Triss shifted into dragon form and spoke softly, “No. We would say . . .” And here he dropped into his native tongue, making a sort of guttural hiss with liquid undertones. “‘Taste’ would be closer to the right meaning, but there’s really no good word for it in human speech. You just don’t have the right senses. It has to do with the interplay between light and shadow and the nature of the everdark.” He shrugged his wings. “It’s very hard to explain the sensation.”
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