Wrath of Empire

Chapter 55

Vlora spotted her soldiers from the entrance to Nighttime Vale. They’d taken up a position just on the edge of town, where they’d formed into two imposing ranks. Rifles were still shouldered, which was a good sign, but she knew better than anyone how quickly the Riflejacks could open fire from a ready position.

She wasn’t able to see what they were up against until she was almost upon them. Galloping down the main avenue, she steered her horse through toppled carts across bloody cobbles – the aftermath of the fighting between Jezzy’s and Burt’s gangs – and arrived to find about three hundred hired guns and prospectors strung out across rooftops, shop fronts, and barricaded roads. There were about thirty yards between the Riflejacks and the city’s would-be defenders. The Riflejacks had the numbers and the training, but the defenders held the high defensive positions. If this went south, it would go very poorly for both sides.

Vlora leapt from the saddle and crossed a short barricade to where Burt and Olem stood facing each other in the open space between the two forces. “Wait!”

Olem looked up with a surprised expression that passed quickly to relief and then stoicism. Burt let out a heavy sigh and gestured to Vlora as she arrived.

“See?” Burt said. “I told you she was fine the last time I saw her.”

Vlora remembered lying in the dirt, facedown, after her duel with Nohan. “Fine” seemed like a stretch, but she let it pass. “Stand down,” she ordered. “Both of you.”

Olem regarded Burt with a long, thoughtful look, then swept his gaze across the assembled defenders. “We’ll stand down when they stand down.”

Vlora swore under her breath and turned to Burt. “This doesn’t have to escalate.”

“I’d really rather it not,” Burt replied coolly. “The colonel here was just informing me that he would take apart Yellow Creek stick by stick to find you. I told him that was entirely unnecessary. You and I had a deal.”

“And it still stands, right?” Vlora fixed Burt with a long, hard look.

“It still stands.” Burt gestured to the city. “Thanks to you, and one of Jezzy’s men getting trigger-happy, this town belongs to me.” He scowled at Vlora, taking a step back to examine her shoulder and back. “The last time I saw you, you’d been shot.”

“Shot?” Olem echoed. “I thought you said she was fine?”

“Fine-ish.”

“Long story,” Vlora cut Burt off before he could say anything else. “But everyone needs to back off before one of your men loses their nerve and this turns into a pitched battle. Olem, order the Riflejacks to fall back. Burt, will a half mile be sufficient to cool everyone’s temper?”

“It will.” Burt gave a magnanimous smile. “In the meantime, would you join me for a drink? I think the three of us need to talk. Now.”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

Vlora took a whiskey from Burt and glanced at Olem, uncertain. They sat around Burt’s desk in the office above his brothel. The building was empty except for the three of them – everyone else putting out fires, sifting through the ashes, or fighting over Jezzy’s unguarded claims. Vlora wondered why Burt wasn’t out there overseeing the whole thing. “Have we met before?”

Burt offered Olem a cigarette and took his own seat, letting out a soft laugh. “We have. About twelve years ago.”

“I only first came to Fatrasta a couple years back,” Vlora said with some confusion.

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t been to Adro.”

Vlora frowned. Palo were quite rare in the Nine. A decade ago they were still considered mysterious savages by polite society. “When?”

“Jilleman University,” Burt said.

Vlora leaned forward, squinting at Burt’s face. She searched her memory for a few moments before locking on to something. “I did meet a Palo. My first year. I don’t remember his name, but …” She trailed off. Occasionally, a wealthy Palo chieftain would send a favored child to the Nine to get a Kressian education. Sometimes a whole tribe would pool their wealth to do the same. Vlora remembered one of the former – a boy, quite young with an optimistic face who’d paraded around in frontier buckskins and spoke Adran with an accent so bad it was laughable. She tried to reconcile that boy with the suave frontier capitalist sitting across from her.

Burt grinned, watching her face. “You do remember!”

“Your name wasn’t Burt. I would have remembered that.”

“No.” Burt looked up as if searching his memory. “I don’t even remember what I went by. Something unpronounceable.”

“So you weren’t really a chieftain’s son?” Vlora asked.

“That, more or less, was true. Most of the details were either foggy or outright lies.”

Olem stood with an unlit cigarette between his fingers. “Why the deception?”

“We’ll get to that,” Burt said, lighting a cigar before tossing Olem a box of matches. “First, you should know that both Lindet and the Dynize know that you’re here, and why you’ve come. Lindet’s Second Field Army was wiped out in three successive battles a couple weeks back, so she’s in no position to send anyone after you. The Dynize, however, have five brigades on your tail. I’m guessing they’ll be here in four days.”

Vlora stared, openmouthed, at Burt. Olem scoffed. “You couldn’t possibly know all that.”

“I do,” Burt said without a trace of smugness. “Lindet thinks she runs the messenger service along the mountains – and she does pay for most of it. But it’s staffed by my people. The information carried along it reaches me before it reaches her. You,” he said, pointing to Vlora, “were outed by her spies about the same time the Dynize destroyed the Second Army.”

“You could have warned me.”

“It wasn’t convenient at the time,” Burt said with an apologetic smile. “But it is now, and you’re being warned.”

Vlora tried to read Burt’s face, attempting to come away with any real impression of the man. He was a blank slate, returning her gaze with a coolness that bordered on unsettling. “So you know why we’re here?”

“I assume I do. You’re looking for the godstone.”

Vlora shared a glance with Olem before nodding slowly. “You’re not a frontier capitalist, are you?”

“Oh, I’m very much a frontier capitalist,” Burt responded, looking somewhat hurt. “I’ve gotten to be filthy rich working this town.” He gave Vlora a lopsided smile. “But you’re right, I’m not just a prospector.”

Vlora remembered her conversations with Taniel, and his search for a contact with the Palo Nation. “You’re with the Palo Nation.”

“I’m impressed you’ve heard of it.”

“A friend warned me.”

Burt snorted. “You mean Taniel Two-shot?” He scratched his head vigorously, squinting at Vlora through one eye until he was done. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what to do with him. Letting him sit in that prison for the last three weeks was the best decision I’ve made in years. I do not like someone like him running around unchecked.”

“How did you know he’d stay?”

“Because he’s a good man. We’ve met on several occasions, actually. Which was another reason I didn’t want him to see me before I was ready.”

“Are there any of our secrets you don’t know?” Olem asked.

“I …” Burt pulled a wry face and leaned forward, spreading his arms across his desk. “A quick history lesson, my friends, and listen carefully because only a handful of Kressians have ever heard it: Fifty years ago, my grandfather ruled a midsized tribe in what you would call the Fatrastan Wilds. At the time, he had managed to unite dozens of tribes into a sort of loose coalition, not one of which had ever made contact with a Kressian. Until, that is, a young explorer arrived and made friends with my grandfather. The explorer wound up marrying one of his daughters – my mother.”

“You’re not fully Palo?” Vlora asked in surprise.

“I’m half-Adran,” Burt said with a smile. “But I don’t look it.” He continued with his story. “My father was something of a Fatrastaphile – he loved everything about this continent, and colonial expansion was one of the few things that I’ve ever seen him get worked up about. Together with my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and my mother, he began to make a plan for the future of his tribe, to protect them from the Kressian encroachment.

“Geography was our ally. Without inside knowledge, the Ironhook Mountains are very difficult to cross, and the wilds beyond them are vast. For fifty years, no one has questioned the fact that Kressian explorers rarely return from their expeditions north. And for fifty years, no one in the Nine has questioned the wealthy, eccentric savages sent to learn at Kressian universities. You’ve gawked and laughed, but never thought twice. And during that time, we learned.” Burt stopped, cleared his throat. “I’ve gone on too long, so here is a better summary: Beginning with my grandfather, the Palo Nation has studied you without being studied back. We have co-opted the best parts of your civilization. The tribes were united, the hereditary chieftain system replaced with democracy. We have become the thing that Lindet and all the rest of the colonial powers fear the most: natives who have modernized before we could be crushed underfoot.”

A long silence hung in the air, and Burt took advantage of it to relight his cigar. He’d finished his tale with a measure of emotion, but it disappeared back into tranquility as he puffed up a storm of cigar smoke.

“Why are you telling us this?” Vlora asked.

Burt pointed his cigar at her. “Because I’m laying all my cards on the table. Because the Palo Nation won’t remain hidden forever, and I, if you’ll remember, am half Adran. I quite like Adro. It is the only democracy in the Nine, and I would like very much to lay the groundwork of an alliance.”

Vlora felt like she’d been punched in the face. This was not what she’d expected when she came here looking for the godstones, not even in the slightest. Taniel’s warnings about the Palo Nation were, in retrospect, not emphatic enough. “I think that our politicians would be amenable to the idea. But I’m not one of them.”

“You’re a damned war hero, an Adran general, and a member of the Republic Cabal. I can think of perhaps five people who would be more advantageous to have this conversation with. None of them are here, and none of them quite have your reputation for civility.”

“I see. Consider me intrigued. But there are plenty of things to worry about before a formal alliance. Where do the godstones come into this? Or the Dynize, for that matter.”

“The Dynize,” Burt repeated, pulling a sour face. “They’re one of the reasons we’re having this conversation. If they win this war, they won’t be satisfied with tall tales from over the mountains. They will explore north, in force, and they will do so with far more violence and organization than Lindet can manage. For all her intelligence, she’s been holding together a house of cards by sheer willpower and has had no interest in pursuing rumors of our existence. I’m not convinced the Dynize will feel the same way.”

“And the godstone?”

Burt frowned at Olem, then at Vlora. “We are a secular society. We have destroyed our idols, forgotten our gods, and we are better for it. My spies tell me that you and Lindet fell out because you wanted to destroy the stone, so I say this: By all means, destroy it. My government wants nothing to do with the damned thing. If we could have found it, we would have already removed it to the farthest reaches of our territory just to keep it out of Lindet’s hands.” Something must have shown in Vlora’s face, because Burt lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve found it, haven’t you?”

“And we’re working toward destroying it,” Vlora replied.

“Excellent.” Burt stood up, clapping his hands together. “Can you do it before the Dynize arrive?”

“We hope so,” Vlora said hesitantly.

“You have four days.”

“Actually, we only have two. We have to destroy it, then get out of here before the Dynize arrive. The Dynize have instructions to take my head.”

“Why?” Burt asked with disgust.

“Because I humiliated their general, or whatever he wants to call himself, back at Landfall.”

“Ah,” Burt said. “Nothing like a despot who takes things personally. The Dynize and Kressians aren’t all that different, are they?”

“We all want to be the last ones standing,” Olem commented.

“Now, that’s just everyone.” Burt raised his glass of whiskey. “You will have what help I can give you. The town is yours to billet your men, but as you suggest, you shouldn’t tarry. Destroy the godstone or make preparations to move it immediately.”

Vlora considered the offer for a moment, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where was the price, or the betrayal? Was Burt seriously doing all this just to make a friend in the Nine? “You do realize that putting us up, even for a night or two, will earn the anger of the Dynize? If we leave, the town will be undefended.”

“I know,” Burt said with a sigh. “I’ve spent the last few years trying to take this town over by wile, to turn it into a beachhead for my country without Lindet finding out. Everything changed when the Dynize invaded, though. If they head our way, we will eject the prospectors and dynamite the passes. They might take the town, but my people will be safe up in the high places.”

“Even if they have Privileged?”

“We are not … undefended when it comes to sorcery.”

Vlora wondered what Taniel would say when she told him about this conversation. She would have to do it slowly, so she could cast his expression to memory. She stood up, putting out her hand. “We’ll do our best to be gone well before the Dynize arrive. Thank you, Burt. And I hope this is the start of a long friendship.”