Blood of Empire

Chapter 50

Michel worked his way along the back of a crowd in Upper Landfall. He was surprised at the size of it – thousands of people, mostly Palo, waving signs and shouting slogans. They took up the entire center of the square, with even more marching in a continuous circle around them. Everyone was angry, and he couldn’t help but feel a confused mix of pride, guilt, and terror.

Pride because he’d organized the anger behind this protest. Guilt because he knew that eventually people were going to get hurt.

And terrified because the Sons of the Red Hand had nothing to do with this gathering. The anger that he’d stirred up by having Survivor tell his story around the Depths had taken on a mind of its own. He’d nudged community leaders, conducted an enormous propaganda campaign, and paid hundreds of gossips to spread the word, but this… this wasn’t him. He could feel the vibrato of the furious crowd deep in his chest. He could sense the impending violence.

The protest was, if he wasn’t mistaken, occurring in the very same public square where the Blackhats executed the decoy Mama Palo earlier in the year. He wondered if that had been planned, or if this was some kind of coincidence. He wondered if anyone even remembered the poor old woman.

He continued to stay near the edges of the mob, but made his way toward the bandstands set up to one side of the square. A few dozen Palo were already on them, speaking among themselves or shouting back and forth to whip up the crowd. Michel recognized many of them as prominent speakers, activists, and leaders of the Palo community. None of them were as rich or powerful as Meln-Dun had been before his fall, but they were still a force to be reckoned with.

Once Michel had found himself a good spot to listen to the speeches, he craned his head toward the nearby streets. Stone-faced Dynize soldiers were already gathered in tight knots on the roads or positioned on the rooftops. Their muskets were still shouldered, but Michel knew how quickly that would change. He hoped that nothing here turned violent and rethought his own positioning in the crowd.

Better to not be able to hear very well but have a clean exit than to get caught up in a stampede if this got nasty.

He repositioned himself near a wide alley just as a shush went through the crowd. One of the men on the bandstand approached the podium. He clutched a speech in one hand and waved with the other, looking out over the assembled masses with a stern visage.

He introduced himself as Horiallen, and Michel remembered that he owned a mill that provided most of the grain to Greenfire Depths. Jiniel had met with him two days ago.

“My friends!” he began. “Thank you for joining me here today, for a show of solidarity.” There was a cheer that quickly died out. “We’ve gathered as a people to ask questions of the new rulers of Landfall – to demand answers.” He pointed at a particularly prominent group of mounted Dynize soldiers watching from nearby. “Vicious rumors are being spread about our new overlords. These whispers are almost too horrible for me to mention, but I know for a fact that we’ve all heard them by now. Rumors about Dynize sorcery. Rumors about blood sacrifice!” His voice rose to a fever pitch. The crowd grumbled, people shifting about angrily.

“We want to know if these rumors are true! We want to know who will pay for the blood of our children and our grandparents!”

The grumbling grew louder. Shouts of agreement rose from the crowd. Michel looked around nervously and took a few steps back. The tension was thick enough to chew on, and it wouldn’t be long before some damned fools tried to vent their anger on the watching Dynize soldiers. He swore under his breath, but the word caught in his throat as someone suddenly clutched him by the wrist.

He spun, his other hand digging into his pocket for his knuckledusters, only to find himself face-to-face with Tenik. His eyes darted around, looking for some sign of an ambush, but it quickly became apparent that Tenik was alone. It was also apparent, for anyone who looked under the hat that Tenik had pulled down over his face, that he was a Dynize in a sea of angry Palo.

“What are you doing here?” Michel asked, taking a step back to stand beside Tenik.

“Looking for you.” Tenik replied in Adran but spoke in a low voice, clearly conscious of his accent. He let go of Michel’s wrist and leaned heavily on his cane.

“This is not a good place for you,” Michel warned.

“I’m just figuring that out. I feel like we’re on the edge of a damned riot. Is this your doing?”

“In part. But I don’t have any control of it anymore.” Someone nearby scowled at Tenik. Michel took him by the shoulder and steered him through the crowd. “Keep moving. We don’t want anyone to notice what you are. Pit, if you need to talk, we probably should get out of here.”

“We definitely should get out of here.”

“Palo making you nervous?” Michel asked lightly.

“Yes. And Sedial has sent four hundred cudgel-armed thugs to disperse the crowd. It’s going to get really bad really fast. If I hadn’t found you just now, I would have left myself.”

“Shit.” Michel turned, steering them back toward the alley he’d picked out as his escape route earlier. The crowd cheered at the speaker, drowning out whatever it was that Tenik said next. It took them a couple of minutes, but they soon broke through the marchers and headed into the alley. They were just turning the corner when Michel caught sight of a greater number of Dynize soldiers arriving on horseback at the other end of the square. “Just in time,” he muttered.

Michel and Tenik emerged onto the next street. It was still crowded here, with people trying to hear what was going on in the square, but they were able to walk without shoving their way through the press. He heard a loud voice echoing behind him, as if amplified by sorcery, telling the crowd to disperse. An angry roar answered it.

“Faster,” Michel said, offering Tenik his arm. Tenik took it and limped along quickly as they made their escape. The angry shouts of the crowd were soon interspersed with screams. A ripple of fear went down the street. A few people began running toward the sounds. More began running away.

They managed to find a safe place out of the way in a burned-out building on the rim of Greenfire Depths. Tenik sank down to the ground, breathing heavily, one hand on his damaged leg and a grimace on his face. Michel listened to the distant sounds of the chaos. No gunshots so far. That was good, at least. “The damned fools.”

“Who? The people protesting or the ones who showed up to deal with it?”

Michel looked down at Tenik and said, “Both. The protesters should have held their march down in the Depths, where they’d be less likely to be interfered with. And the Dynize…” Michel spat. “They’re just going to make things worse.”

“What do you expect them to do?” Tenik asked. The question came across as petulant. The protest had clearly shaken him, even if he hadn’t already been inclined to side with his countrymen.

Michel didn’t answer the question. He offered Tenik a hand, pulling him back to his feet. “This rumor going around about the street children and blood sacrifices. Is it true?” Tenik asked.

“What do you think?” Michel glanced at his friend sidelong.

Tenik shifted uncomfortably from his good leg to his bad one and back again. “I can’t say I’d be surprised.”

“It’s true.”

“You’re sure?”

Michel nodded.

Tenik rambled off a number of curses in Dynize. “How does Sedial hope to contain this? The arrogant piece of shit, he…” His voice began to rise, but he seemed to catch himself. He turned to Michel. “Once again, the Yaret Household is in your debt.”

Michel frowned. “In what way?”

“The very night that you warned us about the purge orders, they came for Yaret.”

“An assassination attempt?”

“A squad of six of them. We had already tripled our guard, and yet they still killed nine of us and wounded that number again. Yaret barely escaped with his life.” Tenik bit his lip so hard that it drew blood. “Sedial tried to kill my master, Michel! If you hadn’t warned us, he would have succeeded. If he had sent a couple of dragonmen, my entire Household would already be dead.”

Michel felt the thrill of Tenik’s anger and tried not to let himself get swept up in it. “You’re sure they were Sedial’s men?”

“We identified two of them. More than enough to be certain.”

“I thought the whole point of the purge order was so he could legally sic his soldiers on you.”

Tenik winced. “It is. But those purge orders were specifically prepared by the emperor. Your theft of them meant that Sedial couldn’t just march the army into the city. So he resorted to assassins, and he moved up his timeline. No doubt fearful that the orders might end up in someone else’s hands.” Tenik took an unsteady breath. “If not for your interference, we would all be dead.”

“You can thank a light-fingered maid,” Michel replied. He ran his hands through his hair and began to pace. The roar of an angry crowd had died down now, replaced by more screaming. Even many blocks away, he could see people rushing back and forth out in the street.

“Sedial’s trying not to kill anyone,” Tenik explained, gesturing back toward the square. “He’s not a fool. He’s hoping that a few hundred beatings might send the message for the Palo not to ask too many questions.”

Michel wondered if it would work. Perhaps. The Palo had been cowed before by Kressians, and then by Lindet. They could be cowed again. But they’d had a taste of real freedom under the Dynize. He wondered if they’d let that go.

“They’re going to try again.”

Michel turned his attention back to Tenik. “The assassins?”

“Doubtlessly. Sedial does not give up, and he’s already moving forward. Three major Household heads have been found dead in the last three days. One of the killings was definitely an assassination. The other two were made up to look like a mugging and an accident, respectively.”

“Do your people believe it?”

“Some of them,” Tenik admitted. “Some of Sedial’s allies will no doubt be in on it. There are plenty of good people on his side – people who’d never back him if they knew for certain what he was up to – but they also believe anything he says. A lot of bodies would have to pile up before they believed that this was really a purge.”

“So they’re as bad as any one of his other allies.”

“For now, yes. Yaret is reaching out quietly, trying to rally some opposition and inject doubt into the more honorable members of Sedial’s inner circle. I don’t know if it will help.” Tenik leaned over to rub his leg and wound up bent over, limp, his eyes shut. Michel could see the hopelessness in Tenik’s body language: He probably believed he was already dead.

“Is there really nothing Yaret can do to defend himself?”

“If Sedial wants us dead, he will have us dead,” Tenik answered. “That doesn’t mean we won’t fight back, but…” He trailed off for a moment. “Yaret’s cousin is one of our most celebrated generals. She’s in charge of a field army up north, chasing after Lady Flint. We’ve sent word to her about the assassination attempt. She’s our closest ally, but I’m not sure if there’s anything she can do to help us short of marching her entire army down here to demand that Sedial stop the purge. And I don’t think she’s going to do that.”

“What if I can buy you more time?” Michel asked, a thought beginning to form in his head.

Tenik looked up sharply. “How?”

“I’m not completely sure. But I might be able to hide you – to give you time to negotiate, or rally Sedial’s enemies, or just wait out the purge until you can escape to Yaret’s cousin.”

Tenik snorted. “That’s impossible. You’d have to hide several hundred immediate Household members. Maybe more, if we pull some of our military officers out of the infantry. The rest are too low-ranking to require protection – Sedial won’t bother assassinating them – but hundreds of people. Where could you possibly put us?”

Michel stifled a smile. Tenik was in such deep despair that he couldn’t see the answer hiding literally right under his nose. “Are the Yaret Household still the only ones who have all the maps of the catacombs?”

“What maps you didn’t steal when you –” A wave of shock swept across Tenik’s face, followed by a gasp of relief. “Damn you, Michel. How the pit did I not see that?” He stood up straight, like he’d been animated by some new strength. “Those catacombs are endless. We could disappear without Sedial even noticing, and even if he did, we could hold out in there for weeks. He’d have to send Privileged in to find us, and he doesn’t have any to spare.” He began to pace, leaning heavily on his cane, talking quickly. “We’d need to pack up our valuables. Take food, bedding, lanterns, rope. Spread everyone out to avoid the bad air. It’ll take planning and logistics, but we could do it. There’s an entrance not far from the Household. We could all disappear within days.”

“I can lend a little help for the logistics,” Michel offered, though he knew that Jiniel would slap him if she heard him say so. The Sons of the Red Hand already had way too much work for their existing plans. They couldn’t afford to take in hundreds of strays. But he was already working through the argument he’d give to her lieutenants: allies among the Dynize. A bona fide source of intelligence, straight from the Minister of Scrolls. Adding kindling to a budding Dynize civil war.

And, it would let him save some friends that he desperately wanted to help.

He pulled out a scrap of paper and a nub of pencil. “Send two of your most trusted people to this address,” he said, scribbling. “We can coordinate getting your people off the streets and well hidden. We might even put some of them in the Depths. I’ll see what we can spare in supplies.”

Tenik took the paper, but a sudden reservation crossed his face.

“What is it?” Michel asked.

“You… you don’t have to do this.”

“I know.”

“But you’re doing it anyway. I didn’t ask for help. Yaret sent me to do so, and I was getting around to it, but I hadn’t actually asked.”

“I don’t need to make you ask,” Michel said reassuringly. He reached out, patting Tenik on the shoulder. “Like I told you before. I’m a spy, not a monster.”

“But…”

“You were – you are – my friend, Tenik. Yaret was, for a small moment, my master, and a good one. I don’t need to abandon that.”

Tenik stared at the scrap of paper, then finally met Michel’s gaze. “Thank you.”

“It’s not often I have things I can offer other people,” Michel said. “It’s kind of nice to be able to help.”

Tenik suddenly pulled him into an embrace, squeezing him hard before hurrying back toward the street and falling into the flow of the crowd. Michel stood still for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the city. The screaming had all but died down now. He could still hear the occasional rough shout of a soldier. Somewhere nearby, a window shattered. “How long have you been standing there?” he asked.

Ichtracia emerged from the shadows of a brick building just around the corner from where Tenik had been standing. She pursed her lips and looked toward the street. “I followed the two of you from the protest.”

“And you didn’t want to announce yourself?” Michel should have been mad, but he was mostly bemused. He was actually a little proud of her – staying silent, listening in on a conversation, sneaking about; she was becoming a better spy every day.

“I was curious what you’d talk about. Also I wanted to make sure that Tenik wasn’t trying to lead you into some kind of trap. Do you trust him?”

“I do,” Michel replied. “But I’m also going to check with Emerald and try to verify his claims. The last thing I need is to be suckered into helping them only to find out that Yaret or Tenik have been turned into puppets by Sedial.”

“Be careful.”

“I will,” Michel promised. “Thank you for watching out for me again.”

She smirked at him. “How did you know I was around the corner?”

“I could see your shadow.”

She looked back to her hiding spot and rolled her eyes. “Damn it. I thought I’d done so well, too. How did you know it was me and not someone else?”

“You have a, uh, particular shape. Even your shadow.”

Ichtracia snorted. “Right. I’ll have to remember that. You think that protest has died down?”

“Sounds like Sedial’s thugs are still chasing people off. But I’m guessing we’re far enough away that we’ll be fine.”

“Good.” She fiddled with her vest pockets where she kept her hidden Privileged gloves. “Let’s go find something to eat. Spycraft makes me hungry.”