Sins of Empire

Chapter 10

Vlora went to meet Michel Bravis on the edge of Greenfire Depths the afternoon after her arrival in Landfall. The sun was scorching, and she fanned herself with her bicorn, a skin of warm beer hanging from her saddle horn as she rode at the head of the column snaking its way through the streets of the plateau. Olem rode at her side, with no comment but for the occasional complaint about the heat.

Around four o’clock Vlora called a halt as they reached a building that looked suspiciously large and fortlike. It was a long wall of rotten timbers, two stories high and punctuated every so often by a guard tower. Almost every inch of the wall was painted with graffiti in a dozen different languages or stuck with playbills advertising the latest ribald comedy. She looked up and down the street, ignoring the people who stopped and stared at her column of troops.

“This can’t possibly be it.”

Olem consulted a map spread out across his saddle horn and then rode over to the nearest crossroads, peering up at the wooden placards. “This is it,” he said. “Loel’s Fort.”

“That Bravis bastard promised me a barracks.”

“Looks like a barracks to me,” Olem said.

“It’s a fort. A frontier fort, by the looks of it, old enough that it was built when this was the frontier.”

“Doesn’t look so bad,” Olem responded with a halfhearted grin.

“This is supposed to be a modern city.”

“Adopest still has a stone wall. The past sticks around.”

Vlora cleared her throat. “Why can’t we have the big fort out on the bay? What’s it called, Fort Nied?”

“I think the garrison is stationed there.” Olem rode his horse about half a block, then returned. “It looks cozy,” he reported unconvincingly.

“You light a cigarette in that place and you’ll kill us all.”

Olem’s look soured.

“This can’t possibly be it,” Vlora repeated.

“It is.”

“How can you be sure?”

Olem jerked his chin. “Because our contact is right there.”

Vlora turned to find Michel Bravis in the shade of a nearby awning, at ease in the heat, his collar sweat-stained and his lapel undone, wearing the black, offset-button shirt and ridiculous bowler hat, the Blackhat’s trademark uniform. He gave Vlora a wave. Vlora resisted the urge to respond with a rude gesture.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Michel said as he crossed the street to join them. He squinted up at the sun, as if it were the first time he’d noticed it today. “Bit warm out, isn’t it?”

“Go to the pit,” Vlora answered. “You promised me a barracks.”

“This is a barracks,” Michel said.

“It’s a rotted ruin,” Vlora snapped. “If I’m going to be weeding out your problems, potentially facing rioters, I want someplace my men can fall back to. A child throwing stones could break down those walls.”

Michel walked over to the wall and kicked at one of the timbers. A splinter the size of Vlora’s leg fell off. Michel stared at it for a moment, then turned to her with a salesman’s smile. “Bit of paint. Some plaster. It’ll be right as rain.”

“I want something else,” Vlora said.

“There is nothing else.”

Olem cleared his throat. “It’ll do, Agent Bravis. But we’ll want supplies to get this fixed up, even if we have to replace every timber.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Vlora shot Olem a look. Why didn’t he ever let her give anyone a good chewing out anymore? “How is this place even still standing?”

“We used it during the war,” Michel answered. He turned to walk along the wall and Vlora dismounted, handing Olem the reins and following Michel on foot. “I was just a kid at the time. I was one of the lucky ones that got out before the Kez arrived, so I didn’t see it firsthand. It’s said that Loel’s Fort was the last defense at the Battle of Landfall, where we really turned the tide and fought the Kez back to the sea. Biggest battle of the whole war, tens of thousands dying on both sides. If it wasn’t for the arrival of the Mad Lancers it would have ended here and I’d probably be speaking Kez.”

Vlora exchanged a glance with Olem. It was the first time she’d heard of the Mad Lancers outside their meeting with Styke and Taniel’s letters. “Who are the Mad Lancers?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound too casual.

“Were,” Michel corrected. “Bunch of mean bastards who fought for us against the Kez. Ask around any pub in this town about Mad Ben Styke and I’m sure you’ll hear a thousand stories. Especially around here. Lots of veterans in this part of town.”

“Ben Styke?” Olem echoed.

“Everyone in Fatrasta knew his name. Damned near a legend.” Michel shrugged. “We’re not supposed to talk about him. He was executed at the end of the war for disobeying orders. Sullied name and all that. But you know how legends are.”

“They refuse to die,” Vlora said quietly.

“Right you are, ma’am.” Michel reached the front gate of Loel’s Fort and pushed open one of the big doors to reveal an overgrown muster yard, filled with lean-tos and a handful of dilapidated buildings. Michel’s smile faltered for a moment, and Vlora swore under her breath. “Lots of paint,” Michel said helpfully.

Vlora did a quick circuit of the premises. Nothing she saw changed her initial impression. The fort was a rotten dump. They must have thrown out hundreds of squatters to make room for her men. The least they could have done was clean the place up a little, too. “There’s not enough room for five thousand men in here.”

“There are two smaller forts within a few blocks of here,” Michel said, turning around and indicating opposite directions. “Loel’s Annex North and Loel’s Annex South. Each of them has a proper barracks hall. That should give you enough space. We’ll provide materials to repair any leaky roofs or broken windows. Until then, I assume you and your men have tents.”

Vlora drummed her fingers against her leg and locked eyes with Olem. She formed a ring with her hands, pointed at Michel’s neck.

Olem shook his head emphatically.

She mouthed the word please.

Olem rolled his eyes. Michel, examining the fort with a rueful look on his face, didn’t seem to notice the exchange. He turned back toward them. “Have you seen the Depths yet?” he asked.

“No,” Olem said, “we haven’t.”

Michel crossed the muster yard and took the steps gingerly up to the top of the western fort wall. “You should be able to…” He called down. “Yep, you can definitely see it from here.” He beckoned for them to join him.

“I can’t get a read on him,” Vlora said quietly.

“Agent Bravis?” Olem asked.

“He’s so… bland. Polite, but not too polite. Ready smile. Attentive, but almost distractedly so.”

“I still think he’s a spy,” Olem said. “Think about it. That politeness is feigned. We’ve both been around enough politicians to spot it, but he’s no politician. I caught his eye a couple of times when he didn’t think I was looking. He’s watching us carefully.”

“Why would they assign a spy to us?”

“Because that’s what the Blackhats do? Do you really think Lindet trusts a mercenary company in her capital city?”

“I suppose not.” Vlora took a few deep breaths, forgetting the Blackhat and looking around at their surroundings. This wasn’t how she wanted to start their latest assignment, but she knew she needed to cool her heels. If Olem was right, anything she said would likely be reported straight back to the people paying her commission. The last thing she needed to do was piss off an employer in a foreign city. “Promise me you can do something with this dump,” she said quietly.

“It’ll take some time,” Olem responded, “but I’ll put the men to work right away. We’ll have a defensible barracks within a couple of weeks.”

“Right about the time we get our own spy network in place.”

“Should be about the length of it, yes.”

“Remember,” Vlora reminded, “we have just one month to find Mama Palo. We’re going to have to work quickly.”

Olem gave her a reassuring wink, and she left him to oversee the brigade’s move-in and joined Michel on the west wall. “What do you have to show…” What she saw below took her breath away.

She’d heard the stories. She’d even gotten a glimpse at the Depths as they passed it on the keelboats in the gorge, but this… this was something else. It was as if a god had reached down and pressed his thumb against the Landfall Plateau, leaving a two-hundred-foot-deep mark a mile in diameter. The Depths wasn’t just an old quarry; it was practically a crater, and it was jammed from one end to the other with tenements; roofs stacked with shantytowns and overgrown gardens, dilapidated construction that made Loel’s Fort look structurally sound. The tallest roofs almost came within spitting distance of the Rim while the bottom – she couldn’t even see the bottom beneath the chaotic hodgepodge of buildings.

Michel was looking at her with a strange smile on his face. Vlora closed her mouth, straightened her belt, and said, “This is something else.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Michel said, almost reverently. “I always like watching the expression on a newcomer when they first see the Depths. No one’s ever ready for just how big it is. I’ve never been to the mountains, but I imagine it’s like looking down on a valley that you didn’t expect hidden away behind the peaks.”

“I’ve never seen a valley packed with so much slum,” Vlora said. “What did you say the population was?”

“Nobody knows for sure,” Michel said, clearing his throat. His brief sense of wonder was replaced with helpful professionalism. “We suspect it’s somewhere around two hundred thousand, though.”

“All crammed in that hole?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s bigger than it looks, though. The tenements have whole road systems between floors, with cables that support hammocks and community spaces. There’s even rumors that they’ve mined into the floor and gotten the old quarry pumps working again for subterranean space. They make use of every inch down there, going up and down. They have to.”

“And it’s all Palo?”

“Mostly,” Michel said. “You get the occasional pocket of Kressian immigrants that don’t know any better. Probably a few thousand old veterans that the Palo leave alone. But yes. Lots of Palo.”

Vlora couldn’t imagine such a thing. Even in Adopest, the worst slums tended to be no bigger than a few blocks, and they were scattered about the city. Here Landfall had managed to combine all of its slums and jam them into a literal hole in the ground. It was like a deep, festering sore on the Landfall Plateau, and the Lady Chancellor expected her mercenary company to sift through that to find a single Palo.

Well. No sense in waiting around. “I’m going to go take a look,” Vlora said, heading back down the stairs without a backward glance. A few hundred men were already inside the fort, cleaning up the abandoned shantytown and inventorying supplies as the soldiers streamed through the gate. She passed Olem, got her sword and pistol from her horse, and fixed both to her belt. “I’m going for a walk,” she told him.

Olem frowned. “You should have an escort.”

“No need for that,” she said firmly. This was often a prickly subject, and she had no interest in a fight. “I’m not Tamas, and I’d rather not attract attention.”

Michel caught up with her just outside the fort. “Lady Flint!”

“Ah, Agent Bravis. Will you accompany me on my walk?”

Michel examined her with a mixture of horror and alarm. “It’s just Michel, ma’am. You’re not planning on going down into the Depths, are you?”

“I want to take a quick look around.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“You go down there and you won’t come back up.”

Vlora peered closely at Michel. He was genuinely worried. The man seemed absolutely certain that Greenfire Depths was some sort of a death trap. Based on the construction alone she might agree, but… “You are aware I’m a powder mage?”

“Even powder mages can get lost. Or ambushed. Or overwhelmed.”

Vlora knew that better than most. She remembered a campaign through the north of Kez, hunted by overwhelming numbers, cutting her way through enemy territory with the very men she eventually formed into her mercenary company. She’d survived that. She could survive a Palo slum.

“I think I can handle myself, Agent Bravis.”

“I’m sure you can, ma’am, and I say this with the deepest respect – it’s a maze. You won’t be able to find your way out.”

“Could you?”

“Of course, ma’am, but I’ve lived in Landfall my whole life, back before the Depths belonged to the Palo.”

“Well, then,” Vlora said with more than a little relish. “You should give me a tour.” And a real damned barracks next time.

Michel froze. Vlora turned to face him, and could see him struggling to keep a lid on a torrent of emotions. “Ma’am,” he finally said, “do you remember yesterday, when I said that Blackhats only go there in force? It’s because they’ll skin us alive if we get caught down there on our own.”

Vlora wondered if he really believed that. She’d heard of slums in Adro where the police preferred to work in numbers, but they feared a robbery and a beating; nothing so savage as straight-up torture. She shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, and continued to walk.

She heard a string of curses behind her, then Michel said, “Wait a moment, ma’am.”

He disappeared into a nearby house and came back a moment later. His black jacket and hat were gone, replaced by a workman’s brown jacket, the elbows patched and repatched, and a matching flatcap. Even the rose medallion, which the Blackhats seemed to wear like shields, was no longer hanging around his neck. Perhaps he really did fear being skinned alive. “A changing house,” he explained. “It’s always good to have a spare set of clothes lying around when you’re a Blackhat near Greenfire Depths.”

Michel led her down several side streets until they reached a thoroughfare that descended by way of switchbacks down the side of the quarry wall. Within two switchbacks they were equal to the tops of most tenements, and after six Vlora was more than a little disconcerted that she could not see the sky without looking straight up. The ground soon leveled out, and her boots splashed in a filthy morass of sludge.

“Welcome to the Depths,” Michel said.

The air was damp, stifling, and dim. There were only glimpses of the sky, and most of the light was provided by well-placed mirrors redirecting the sun from the tops of the tenements. Michel noticed her examining one of the mirrors and said, “Courtesy of the Lady Chancellor, back before the Palo took over. It was a cheaper and safer way to light this place in the daytime.”

“It needs it,” Vlora said.

Michel pulled the brim of his flatcap forward. “We should keep moving,” he said.

Vlora pulled herself away from examining the distressing construction of the tenements, with walkways and curtains running between them, whole buildings propped up by jacks and beams, and noticed that almost everyone within sight was staring at them. No, not at them. At her. Unlike Michel, she was still wearing her hat and uniform. She wondered if these people knew who she was, and that she’d spent the last year out in the frontier fighting their cousins for the government.

Perhaps this expedition was as ill-advised as Michel suggested.

Any sense of a real thoroughfare disappeared within a hundred paces. She could barely see the sky now, and after they’d gone just a hundred more she had to admit to herself that she was hopelessly lost. There was no sense of direction in this place, no recognizable landmarks. She was as good as underground.

She also noticed the sudden silence. A few moments ago there had been children playing in the streets, vendors haggling with old women, pedestrians strolling along the corridors. Now there were scarcely half a dozen people within eyesight and all of them heading the opposite direction. She couldn’t help but feel the weight of watchful eyes between her shoulder blades. The silence seemed to make the stink worse, a noxious stench like rotten food and dead animals, and she now noticed the rats running every which way as they passed.

They took several twists and turns before Vlora said, “I think we’re being followed.”

“We’re definitely being followed,” Michel agreed. His mouth was a firm line, and they ducked down two more bends quickly. “It’s pretty common down here. I told you, the Palo are organized. They keep an eye out for strangers – anyone with a Kressian face that they don’t recognize. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re being watched by Mama Palo’s own spies right now.”

The sense of helplessness that overcame Vlora as she tried to figure out which direction they were going was disconcerting, to say the least. Her eyes darted between doorways and windows but there were too many crannies to keep an eye on. An ambush down here, undertaken by a capable leader, could slaughter an entire brigade.

Her brigade.

“I think we should go,” Vlora said.

“What do you think we’re doing?” Michel’s voice was on edge now, a little higher than usual, and before he’d finished the sentence they rounded one more bend to find the entrance to the switchbacks right in front of them. She thought she heard Michel give a quiet sigh, and then again once they’d reached the top of the switchbacks. She took a moment to catch her breath, looking back over the surreal slums below them.

“That,” she said, chewing on her words and trying to work the smell out of her nostrils, “is not a pleasant place.”

Michel gave her a tight smile, as if to say I told you so, but followed it up with a sympathetic nod. “That’s putting it lightly. It used to just be a confusing slum. Get lost, ask for directions, you’ll make your way back out by morning, perhaps with an empty purse. But now, with the Palo in charge, entire Blackhat squads go missing and are never heard from again.”

“They really hate you, don’t they?”

“Me?” Michel asked. “Ma’am, you seem like you prefer people to be honest with you, so I’ll tell you this: They hate us. They may not know yet, but word will spread who you are and who you work for. When it does, your men will start disappearing.”

The words felt like a punch in the gut. What the pit had she gotten herself into, coming to a place where her men couldn’t be safe walking down the street? Surely, this kind of thing should be familiar? The swamps of the Tristan Basin were just as impenetrable and dangerous, yet it felt like a betrayal to come to a modern city and find the same kind of danger. But, she decided, they’d managed in the swamps and they’d manage here.

“Any advice I should give to my men if they get lost down in the Depths?” she asked. If you say ‘pray,’ I will punch you in the face.

Michel scrunched his nose, gazing down over the edge of the Rim, then checked his pocket watch. He swore to himself. “Advice? Yeah. Try to find a quarry wall, then stick with it until you find a switchback out. Don’t leave the floor of the quarry until you find a switchback because if you go up one of those tenements, your maze has become three-dimensional.” He checked his watch again. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have several more meetings today. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Always running off. Vlora glanced toward Loel’s Fort, where she could see the company flag being hoisted. It reached the top of the flagpole, jumped once, and the whole flagpole suddenly toppled over, raising a cloud of dust above the fort. That doesn’t bode well. “Yes,” she said. “I’m not going into that place without some sort of intelligence. You said you had agents in the Depths?”

“Yes. Well. Sort of. Here,” Michel said, scribbling on the back of one of his business cards and handing it to Vlora, who read the words and address.

“The Ice Baron?” she asked.

“He’s a businessman.”

“Can he be trusted?”

Michel seemed to hesitate. “He’s a man without guile so I guess in that sense, yes. He can be trusted. I’d suggest being discreet about your mission.”

“What’s our public reason for being stationed just outside the Depths?” Vlora asked. “People are going to ask questions, after all. We’re a whole damned army.”

“We haven’t given one yet,” Michel said. “The propagandists are working on it.”

Vlora gave a derisive snort. Propaganda was a normal part of any government, but referring to their public relations office that way sounded damned cynical, even for Blackhats. “How about this,” she suggested. “My men have been put on ice until the next mission. We’ve been recalled because of the recent riots, and we’re here to keep the peace. While we wait for our next assignment I have several engineers who have offered to begin reconstruction around the rim of Greenfire Depths.”

Michel cocked an eyebrow. “Do you have several engineers?”

“Very good ones,” Vlora said. “And I like to keep my men busy when they’re not fighting. I’ve noticed that the Lady Chancellor seems to love construction projects, so let us knock down and rebuild a few tenements and it looks like we’re doing community good. Might even give us an excuse to snoop around the Depths.”

Michel mulled it over. “It might work. I’ll pass it up the chain of command.”

“Let me know by tomorrow afternoon. People will begin asking questions, and I want an official answer to give them.”

“Very good, ma’am.” Michel tipped his hat and headed toward the building where he’d left his Blackhat uniform.

Back at Loel’s Fort, Vlora stood in the doorway to watch the organized chaos of an army setting up a new headquarters. Olem noticed her after a moment and came by.

“How did it go? Is it as horrifying as they say?”

“No,” she replied. “I’d like to build a summer home here. Retire. Let the grandchildren play in the streets.”

“We’d have to have children first.”

That was a conversation she wasn’t having right now. “I’m being sarcastic. It’s a bloody maze. Makes my skin crawl, and not just because of the sludge you have to walk through. I don’t like it one bit. Oh, and I may have just set up a construction project for the engineers. Once they’re done rebuilding the fort, that is.”

Olem looked aggrieved. “I’ll tell Whitehall. He’ll be thrilled. Do we have a plan of attack for finding Mama Palo?”

“I’m not sure,” Vlora answered, “whether the Blackhats thought they could trick us into using force, but I am not going to fight my way through that slum. We’re going to finesse this thing. Agent Bravis gave me a card for someone called the Ice Baron. Know him?”

“Businessman,” Olem said.

“I gathered. Sounds like he’s our intelligence. Set up a meeting, and let’s figure out how to get inside Greenfire Depths.”