Blood of Empire

Chapter 5

Styke knelt in the thick, clinging underbrush, trying to ignore whatever creature was crawling across the back of his neck, and watched as two squads of Dynize naval infantry splashed through a streambed almost close enough for him to touch. The soldiers seemed alert, watchful, each of them looking in a different direction to cover all approaches while the two leads tracked Styke’s Lancers across mud, water, and rock.

He pressed his back against one of the mighty stone outcroppings that rose sharply from the swamp. Not a sound – not a breath. He was too close. One of the soldiers looked right past him, stabbing a short bayonet into the foliage and missing Styke’s knee by inches. Satisfied, the woman moved on. A few moments later the last soldier paused right beside Styke. He said something in Dynize that Styke couldn’t quite catch, then turned directly toward him and began to undo his trousers.

Styke was willing to put up with all sorts of creeping things for the sake of an ambush. He would not, however, allow a man to piss on him. He grunted, knife flashing up, and slashed the man’s throat before he could say a word. Styke lunged from the underbrush before his first victim had hit the ground. He thrust into the next soldier, cut the throat of a third, and took two steps back before the rest of the squad could turn to face him.

“Now!” he yelled, flinging himself back into the underbrush.

Farther up the stream, twenty carbines fired at once, cutting through the two squads of infantry. Styke listened to the bullets whiz by and crack against the stone mere feet from his head, then counted to ten before he returned to the open.

Only six members of the original two squads remained standing. The Lancers fell upon them, swinging carbines and knives, but to their credit the Dynize infantry did not go down without a fight. Wounded to a man, they closed ranks and returned fire, then brandished their bayonets. Styke waited for them to route and retreat toward him, but not a one of them did.

Within the minute they were overwhelmed, but at least four of Styke’s Lancers had taken wounds, and two of those were on the ground. He joined the group, taking a moment to wipe his blade on the jacket of a fallen Dynize before barking out, “No time to slow down. We’ve got at least six more squads on our heels. Jackal, get the horses. Sunin, see to the wounded. We’ve got to stay ahead of these bastards or this swamp will be the last thing we see.”

As they jumped to follow his orders, Styke let out a piercing whistle. A few moments later both Ka-poel and Celine emerged from the trees farther up the streambed. Celine looked around at the bodies like a child unimpressed by a bunch of broken dolls, while Ka-poel’s study was far cooler, almost academic.

“If one of these is still breathing,” Styke said, “I need him to talk. Can you do that?”

Ka-poel’s hands flashed. Celine translated. I thought you don’t like my methods.

“I don’t. But I’d like to stay alive right now.”

Ka-poel rolled her eyes and headed around the sixteen-or-so fallen Dynize. She checked three of them before finally squatting beside one, a man with the haggard old face of a seasoned veteran. The man’s mouth was full of blood, his teeth clenched tightly, but he grinned defiantly at them as he clutched a length of intestine falling from a gaping stomach wound. Ka-poel dipped her fingers in his blood, then dabbed them on his forehead and cheeks. The soldier’s eyes narrowed, then widened in realization, and he began to shiver violently, clawing at his own stomach as if to hurry his own demise.

“Seems like they know what a bone-eye is capable of,” Styke commented. He looked over his shoulder to make sure that his orders were being carried out. The men had already begun to bring their horses back to the streambed and out of the rocky recess where they’d been hidden.

Ka-poel pressed two fingers against the dying soldier’s throat. The man’s struggles weakened, his eyes glazing over. She nodded.

Styke knelt beside him, looking over the soldier, the coppery scent of Ka-poel’s sorcery in his nostrils. “Can you understand me?” He spoke in Palo, throwing in the few Dynize words he knew.

“Yes,” the soldier responded.

“Good. How many of you are on our tail?”

“Nine squads.”

“How many in a Dynize squad?”

“Eight to ten.” The answers were mechanical, spoken in that Dynize that sounded so much like heavily accented Palo.

“Your orders?”

“Kill you. Capture a few. Find out why you’re dropping such a small group on the homeland.”

“Is your ship continuing in pursuit of ours?”

“Just the escorts. Our ship of the line will return to port to let them know about a possible invasion.”

“Of just twenty men?”

The soldier blinked blankly. “We are very cautious. The homeland is not well defended right now.”

Styke tried to think of any other questions that a common soldier might be able to answer. That last bit was good news, but he knew better than to take the man at his word. It was very unlikely that he actually knew how many soldiers the Dynize had left to garrison their own cities. “Not well defended” – could be relative, considering the size of the Dynize invasion force.

Still, this meant that someone would be told that Styke had put to shore. Whether the Dynize cared enough to come looking was another matter. But they needed to hurry.

“How far behind us are the rest of your comrades?”

Sweat poured down the soldier’s forehead. He was dying, and quickly. Styke wondered how long Ka-poel could keep him alive. “I don’t know. We spread out to entrap you. The others may already be on your flank.”

“Piss and shit.” Styke stood up, raising his head to the sky. “We need to find that road well before nightfall,” he shouted. “Form a line and get ready to move out. I want to –”

He was cut off by the distant caw of a raven, followed by another, then a long-drawn-out croak. He paused and looked around for Jackal. “Did you hear that?”

Jackal nodded in confusion. “That was Markus’s signal.”

“That the enemy on our left flank has been taken care of,” Styke replied, not bothering to hide his bafflement.

“Yes.”

“By himself?”

“I’m not sure,” Jackal said. “Should I go find him?”

Styke felt his gut twist. Something was wrong here and he couldn’t quite place it. “We need to keep moving. If we’re fine on our left flank, it won’t hurt to get to the road. Markus can catch up with us. Get on your horses,” he told Ka-poel and Celine. Once Celine’s back was turned, he knelt down next to the soldier he’d been interrogating and quickly dispatched him.

“Ben,” Jackal said.

“What is it?” Styke’s eyes fell on Jackal, only to see that the Palo had frozen in place, alert as a dog with its hackles up. Gripping his knife, Styke turned to follow his gaze.

A pair of figures had appeared on a knoll to their right. One of them was Zac, Markus’s brother. The other was familiar, and it made the hair on the back of Styke’s neck stand on end.

It was the dragonman who had walked out at the Battle of Starlight. Ji-Orz. He wore the same naval infantry uniform as the soldiers Styke had just ambushed, and he regarded the entire group of Lancers with an air of appraisal. He and Zac descended the knoll, and though Zac was stiff, he didn’t appear to be under any duress. He swallowed hard when they reached the stream and cleared his throat. “Boss,” he said, “this man says he’s a buddy of yours.”

Styke met Ji-Orz’s gaze and slowly wicked the blood off his knife with two fingers. “Dragonman.”

“Hello, Ben Styke,” Orz said in Adran. “I have come to make a deal.”

“Hold on,” Styke cut him off. “First, how the pit did you get here?” He looked sharply around at the gathered Lancers. He had no doubt that they could deal with the dragonman – but it would be at great cost.

Orz raised one eyebrow, his gaze sweeping casually – too casually – across the Lancers, lingering for half a moment on Ka-poel. “How do you think?”

“You stowed away on the Seaward?” Zac blurted.

The dragonman glanced at Zac, his face expressionless. “Yes.”

“Where?” Zac again. Styke thought to silence him, but he was curious, too. The Seaward was not a big ship.

“Just under the prow. There was enough space to hang in the rigging out of sight. If the captain had ordered any work done on the keel on a slow day, I would have been discovered.”

“You just hung there for two weeks?” Styke asked flatly. Styke had spent the better part of the journey carving and watched the gulls up on the forecastle. Orz had probably been less than a handful of paces away the entire time. The idea was disconcerting.

“I snuck on board for food and water on two nights. But otherwise, yes.” Orz answered as if it was no great deed.

“Through the storm?”

“It was… unpleasant,” Orz answered. “Most of my clothes were torn away. I had to abandon my dragon leathers. That’s why I’m wearing these.” He plucked at the ill-fitting Dynize uniform. “Does that satisfy your curiosity? Or would you prefer to believe that I swam here?”

Styke considered the question for a few moments. It had been over a month since Ji-Orz left the battle at Starlight. In theory, that was plenty of time for him to slip down the coast, hop a Dynize vessel, and then put to land with the soldiers currently on their tail. But it would have to be a damn big coincidence that Orz wound up on the same ship that would eventually give chase to the Seaward. He shook his head. Either way gave him a strange story. Either way he didn’t trust the dragonman. “All right. Assuming you hitched a ride with us… why?”

A serious smile flickered across Orz’s face. “Because I needed to get home.”

“And you couldn’t just find a Dynize vessel?”

“I left in the middle of a battle, disobeying direct orders from Ka-Sedial himself. I am not… how do you say, a person ‘welcome’ among the Dynize.”

“Yet you’re going back.”

A nod. “By now, my betrayal will be well known among the Dynize in Fatrasta. Dragonmen will have been sent to look for me. Coming back here is the last thing Ka-Sedial will expect.”

Styke studied Orz closely, trying to foresee where all of this was going. “But they’ll find out eventually.”

“Yes, they will.” Somehow, Orz’s serious face grew even more tense. “Sedial knows he cannot punish me, so he will punish those close to me. He will have dispatched agents to seek my family. I’ve returned to do what I can to protect them from the coming reckoning.”

Styke glanced to his side. Ka-poel stared hard at the dragonman, flicking her gaze once toward Styke but betraying nothing of her thoughts. “Is he telling the truth?” Styke asked.

Ka-poel drew a pen knife from one pocket, then presented an open palm toward Orz. Orz’s eyes immediately narrowed. “No,” he said firmly. “I assume that you’re the one who broke Sedial’s hold on me. If that is true, I thank you. However, I will not allow a bone-eye to take my blood again, not willingly.”

Ka-poel snorted. She gave a few short gestures and stepped back next to her horse. I think he’s telling the truth, Celine translated.

“All right,” Styke said, breaking a sudden stillness. He realized his shoulders were tense, his fist clutching the hilt of his knife so hard that it hurt. He forced himself to relax and put his knife away. “We know why you’re in Dynize. Now tell me why you’re here. What’s this proposition? And make it quick, because fifty or more of your countrymen are swarming that swamp behind us, and I need to either get ahead of them or set up a trap.”

“Sixty-four,” Orz said softly.

“Sixty-four what?” Styke found himself losing patience, and had to consciously restrain himself from reaching for his knife.

“Sixty-four of my countrymen. They won’t be a bother.”

A shiver went up Styke’s spine. He jerked his head at Zac, who immediately took off into the swamp to check on Orz’s claim. Orz continued, “My proposition is this: If you help me get home and get my relatives to safety, I will help you make the rendezvous with the rest of your cavalry.”

“Why do you think we need your help?”

“Because you won’t make it twenty miles without me.” Orz paused for a just a moment, as if to let the information sink in, then continued, “I’ve been listening to your Lancers gossip for weeks. I listened at Starlight and I listened on the ship. I know that you’re here to destroy the godstone, and I know that you plan on meeting up with your Lancers and finding the stone in the middle of the swamp. As for the godstone: good. Dynize is better without Sedial getting his hands on such a weapon. As for your plan… it is inherently flawed.”

The surrounding Lancers began to murmur among themselves, exchanging glances and reaching for weapons. Styke could sense the swell of uncertainty within them, and it was not a feeling that would make this journey any easier. He half considered lashing out with his knife, silencing the dragonman before he could sow any more doubt. But that, he decided, would not end well. “How is our plan flawed?” Styke asked between clenched teeth. He looked once more at Ka-poel. Her head was cocked to one side, as if she was listening very carefully to what the dragonman had to say.

Orz didn’t seem to notice the stir his words caused. “Because you don’t have updated maps of Dynize. No outsider has set foot on our shore and been allowed to depart again for over a hundred years, and that means you have no idea how the Jagged Fens have changed since your map was made. The Fens are no longer a wilderness. They may seem it from the outside, yes; we’ve been very careful to keep our shoreline looking static to foreign sailors. But the Fens have been tamed. The godstone you seek is not sunk into some swamp. It was rediscovered forty years ago and excavated. The scholars and sorcerers did not think it wise to move it, so instead we built a city around it. We moved the entire capital. The godstone is now the centerpiece of the emperor’s palace, less than sixty miles from where we stand. The road you wish to use is a heavily trafficked highway rather than a backwater dirt track, and there are at least eight population centers between here and the capital.”

Styke took a step back, feeling like he’d been punched. To pit with riding through the damned wilderness. If Orz was telling the truth, he was now separated from both his army and their target by several cities and whatever garrisons they might hold.

Orz spread his hands. “May I see your map?”

Numb, Styke gave a nod. Celine handed over the map case, and Styke passed it to the dragonman. Orz carefully drew out the regional map and unrolled it, giving it an appraising glance. “From what I overheard, you planned on landing here, correct?” He pointed to the rendezvous.

“Yes.” Styke briefly considered that he was giving vital intelligence to the enemy. What if Orz snatched the maps and made a run for it, taking knowledge of the invasion back to his people? But Styke was still trying to process Orz’s claims, and he felt suddenly sapped of all energy to consider intrigue.

“It’s a good place to land. Inhospitable, dense swampland. You’re lucky, because they’ll have some time to make preparations and scout before they are discovered.” Orz tapped another spot, roughly two-thirds of the way down the coast between their current location and the rendezvous, and about twenty miles inland. “This is the Dynize capital, home of the godstone. It’s named Talunlica. To reach your rendezvous, you will have to pass through or very close to Talunlica, and you will not be able to do so undetected.

“As I said,” Orz continued, “I will exchange my help for yours. My parents live in the capital. They are the former heads of a Household and have since stepped down. ‘Retired’ is your word, yes? If you help me get them safely out of the city and into hiding, I will make sure you reach the rest of your army.”

Styke had no idea how reaching Ibana and the rest of the Mad Lancers was going to help. He’d brought twenty-five hundred cavalry over – enough to seize and secure an artifact in the middle of the swamp while they figured out how to destroy it. But the Dynize had built an entire damn city around the thing. How was he going to meet up with Ibana, storm a city, crush a garrison, and give Ka-poel time to unravel the damn thing’s secrets?

He took a deep breath, letting the emotions roll over him, turning his uncertainty into focus. One thing at a time. “How do you propose getting twenty foreign cavalry through the center of government in a place where foreigners aren’t allowed?”

That serious smile crossed Orz’s expression again. “Foreigners are not completely unknown in Dynize.”

Ka-poel gestured emphatically. Explain.

“Shipwrecked sailors, foolish explorers, and the descendants of a handful of merchant families that were allowed to remain in Dynize when the borders closed. There is an entire” – he paused, searching for the word – “ ‘subculture,’ I think you’d say, surrounding foreigners. It would take far too long to explain, but the vast majority of them are slaves – the only legal slaves remaining in the empire.”

“You want us to pose as slaves?” Styke demanded. He immediately envisioned his time in the labor camps, chained together with convicts, forced to dig ditches for his evening gruel. He had to stifle a surge of fury in his breast.

“Yes, slaves,” Orz said, speaking quickly as several of the Lancers gave voice to the same fears that had risen in Styke. “But I do not think ‘slave’ has the same meaning to you and me. In Dynize, a slave is a member of a Household. They do not get to choose their Household, but they do have jobs, families, security. Many of them act as Household guards. Still slaves, yes, but treated well.”

Styke relaxed somewhat, rolling his shoulders, and nodded for Orz to continue.

“I am a dragonman. Very few people who see these tattoos dare to question my word. I can pass myself off as escorting twenty slaves and” – he gestured to the armor strapped to Amrec’s saddle – “an acquisition of Kressian armor from up north. We will pose as members of a Household that has little to no presence in the capital. As long as we keep moving without hesitation or delay, there shouldn’t be any problems.” Orz spread his arms, looking around at the assembled Lancers and once again allowing his gaze to linger for a few seconds on Ka-poel.

A niggle of urgency touched the back of Styke’s mind, and he glanced toward the swamp, hoping to catch sight of either of his scouts. Those damned Dynize soldiers might be on them at any moment, and he needed to set up an ambush or get moving. “We’re getting more out of this than you are,” he said. “Why?”

“Because,” Orz said simply, “your plan will disrupt the local politics and mask the disappearance of my parents. And I don’t think you have any real chance of success. It is a fool’s errand, and I find myself drawn to it in the same way I was drawn to spitting at the feet of an emperor I didn’t love even though I knew I would suffer the consequences.”

“He thinks he’s giving charity to a bunch of simpletons,” someone said angrily from the back of the group.

Orz held up one finger, a genuine smile cracking the corner of his mouth. “On the contrary. I have seen Ben Styke kill several dragonmen in single combat. I have seen the carnage wrought by the Mad Lancers against the very best Dynize cavalry. And I have seen her” – he pointed at Ka-poel – “break the strongest bone-eye in the world. You are the only group I can possibly imagine succeeding at this mission, and even if you all die in the attempt, you will cause Ka-Sedial many sleepless nights. That is enough for me.”

Styke weighed his options. Was this a ruse? Or was everything Orz had said true? If so, did Styke have any other option beyond trusting him? He glanced at Ka-poel and considered demanding Orz give her his blood. But what if Orz was telling the truth, and the very request drove him away? That would leave Styke and his men stranded in enemy territory with no way of reaching the rest of the Lancers.

His attention was drawn back to the swamp as a pair of figures sprinted out of the undergrowth and across a wide, shallow stream. It was Zac and Markus. The pair were coated in swamp slime, faces dirty, eyes wide. They pushed their way through the assembled Lancers, and Markus took a deep breath, glancing fearfully at Orz, before nodding excitedly at Styke. “Uh, sir…”

“Spit it out,” Styke ordered.

“Ben, the landing party is dead.”

“What do you mean, dead?”

“Sixty-four of them. All dead. Looked like most of them were picked off in small groups, most of them without a chance of drawing their weapons.” He glanced at Orz’s clothing. “One of them was naked.”

Styke slowly turned to Orz. “You killed your own people.”

Orz shrugged. “It wasn’t the first time. It won’t be the last. They were of a Household that was my enemy during the war, so I feel no guilt. Besides, I thought it the only way to convince you of my intentions.”

Sixty-four men, slaughtered in what must have been less than an hour as they were strung out through the swamp. Styke hadn’t heard a single gunshot in that time. He twirled his ring thoughtfully, pressing his thumb against the tip of the silver lance until it hurt. “What do you need to get us past Talunca?”

“Talunlica,” Orz corrected. “Dynize colors, for a start. Passports. Weapons. Whatever we can’t get off the dead, we will acquire at the next large town. And I’ll need your men to stay completely silent for the next week – we cannot risk anyone finding out they don’t speak Dynize.”

“Right.” Styke glanced once more at Ka-poel. She gave him a small nod. He wished that Ibana were here to hash this out with him. She was more level-headed about this sort of thing. “Backtrack, boys. Let’s strip the dead and get ourselves cleaned up. Orz here is going to teach you all how to write ‘I’ve taken a vow of silence’ in Dynize. Once we’re on the main road, the first of you to talk to anyone but me gets my ring through the front of your skull. Got it?” There was a round of reluctant nods, and the Lancers began heading back the way they came, most of them giving Orz a reluctant glance as they passed.

Orz snorted. “That might work in an emergency.”

“Good. Because I damn well don’t trust you, but I know you’re telling the truth about at least one thing.”

“Oh?”

“That this is a fool’s errand,” Styke said quietly, “and we’re probably all going to die.”