Wrath of Empire

Chapter 8

“Ben, wake up.”

Styke stared at the stars, his saddle beneath his head as a pillow while he stretched out on a bedroll tossed sloppily on the damp grass to keep him dry. He waited to answer until a boot nudged his ribs. “I’m awake.”

Ibana leaned over him, peering into his eyes, and gave him a gentle slap on one cheek. “Then answer when I call.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Styke replied. He’d never had a problem sleeping until the labor camps. The pain of his old wounds, the uncertainty he felt toward the guards and the other inmates; he’d gained the ability to take catnaps but still had difficulty with real, deep sleep. Since he got out, his rest had been inconsistent – some nights as easy as lying down, while other nights sleep was elusive until late in the morning. This night was one of the latter.

“I damn well know it’s the middle of the night. But there’s something you should see.”

“Is it important?”

“It is for you.”

Reluctantly, Styke found his boots and climbed to his feet, glaring at Ibana through the darkness. “I was enjoying the quiet.”

“It’s not going to be quiet much longer. Rumor has it Flint has a plan up her sleeve, and it includes us making a move before sunup.”

“Is that why you woke me up?” Styke made a fist, then stretched out his fingers, repeating the motion to loosen the muscles.

“No. Something else.”

“Pit.” He thought about ignoring her and throwing himself back to the ground in a futile effort to get a few more hours of sleep. If this was really important, Ibana would have woken up everyone. “Okay, fine. What do you want to show me?”

Ibana led him through the lancer camp and out through their eastern pickets. They didn’t exchange another word until they were well beyond earshot of the guards; then she said, “How is your hand?”

“Fine.” Styke, midstretch, buried his left hand in his pocket. “Why? Celine telling you stories?”

“She’s worried about you.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m more worried about you telling a little girl that I need to stop feeling sorry for myself.”

Ibana paused briefly before continuing their walk. “And I need to teach her how to keep secrets.”

“Not from me, you don’t.”

“Every girl keeps secrets from her dad,” Ibana said with a note of bemusement. “Just like every boy keeps them from his mom.”

Dad. What an odd notion. Styke had no way of knowing if he had a few bastards scattered around Fatrasta, but he’d certainly never thought of himself as a father. But with Celine, it felt right. “I wouldn’t know.”

Another pause. “Sorry.”

Styke rolled his eyes. Thirty years or more since his father murdered his mother. It was underhanded to play that card, but he was tired and irritable and Ibana hadn’t yet told him why she was dragging him all the way out here. “It’s fine. What’s going on here, anyway? You didn’t wake me up to ask after my health.”

“No,” Ibana said, “I didn’t.” She gestured ahead of them, and Styke looked up to see the distant outline of a small farmhouse with a light flickering in the single window. He scowled, curious, but allowed Ibana to lead him onward until they were almost to the house. It was an old farmsteaders’ plot, a one-room home with rotting timber walls and a low sod roof.

“Who lives here?” Styke asked.

“No idea. We found it empty, but it seemed apt for our needs.”

“What needs were …?” Styke trailed off as Ibana opened the door and they both stepped inside. Everything of value had been cleared out of the house, leaving bare walls and a dirt floor. A single lantern hung from the rafters and illuminated three men. Styke recognized two of them: Markus and Zac were a pair of Brudanian brothers in their midthirties, ugly as sin and dressed in rags that helped them blend in when they were out scouting. The brothers were old Mad Lancers, two of the original group that had helped Styke terrorize the Kez Army all those years ago.

The third figure was a bigger man, kneeling between the brothers with a burlap sack over his head and hands bound behind his back.

“Afternoon, Colonel!” Markus said cheerily, snapping a salute.

“It’s the middle of the night, you twit,” Zac told him.

“Don’t make no difference. Night, afternoon, all just a construct of the modern man.”

“Oh, don’t start this shit again.”

“It’s true! If it weren’t for man, the sun in the sky wouldn’t care what we called each particular time of day. Why, I bet –”

Styke cleared his throat and Markus’s mouth shut. Styke glanced at Ibana, who’d taken up a spot by the window and now stood watching the small group impassively. “What’s all this?” Styke asked her.

Ibana nodded at the two brothers. They exchanged a glance, and Zac spoke up. “It’s a little bit of a story, Colonel, sir, if you don’t mind me telling it.”

“Make it short,” Styke said, though his curiosity was piqued. He squinted at the kneeling man, wondering who was hidden beneath that burlap. He had the distinct impression he knew the prisoner.

“You remember the day they took you to the firing squad?”

Markus punched his brother in the shoulder. He hissed, “Of course he remembers, fool. Don’t be insensitive!”

“Right, well …” Zac cleared his throat. “Markie and I, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that day.”

“Me too,” Styke said slowly.

“On that day, the Blackhats came and took our weapons, then carried you away. They put you to the firing squad before we could organize ourselves and afterward they didn’t even leave us a body. We had a funeral for you the next day.”

“That’s touching,” Styke interrupted, “but I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“He said short, you prick,” Markus whispered. He cleared his throat and took up where his brother left off. “What he’s getting at is this, sir: There were four of us missing from the funeral.”

Styke felt his eyes narrow and now he couldn’t take his gaze from the kneeling form. He was beginning to have his suspicions about who was under that burlap bag, and about where this story was going. It was not a direction he wanted to follow.

“Thing is, sir, we gave up our weapons because four of us convinced the rest that the Blackhats were going to give them right back. And those four that made that argument … well, they weren’t at your funeral. So a couple years ago, me and Zac decided to track them down. Did some asking, dug around a little bit in back channels. All four of them wound up with a windfall from Lindet’s regime right after the war. They got paid off for something, sir.”

“You’re saying they betrayed me?” Styke asked bluntly. He resisted the idea – he didn’t want to consider that any of his lancers would turn on him – but slowly, it began to make sense. His memories of the day were fuzzy at best, but he remembered an argument among the lancers before they were disarmed. There was no way Fidelis Jes could have managed that without inside help.

“They betrayed us,” Ibana said.

The brothers looked at Ibana for a long few moments before Markus ducked his head toward Styke. “Three of them weren’t hard to track down. We’ve been keeping an eye on them since. But this one” – he nudged the kneeling figure with one boot – “he hasn’t been seen since. We found him with the refugees yesterday.”

Styke took a step toward the kneeling man and jerked the sack off his head, discarding it in the corner. The face that blinked up at him was familiar, if aged a decade. He was in his forties, roughly the same age as Styke, and had graying brown hair and a wispy beard. He had a thick neck and muscular shoulders, which had made him a fantastic lancer, and he blinked up at Styke’s face impassively. His left eye was swollen nearly shut by a recent shiner, and Styke wondered which of the brothers had given it to him.

“Sergeant Agoston.”

Styke remembered Agoston as an implacable figure, unruffled by burned villages and slaughtered enemies. He’d been a sword-for-hire before the war and joined up with the lancers for the spoils, always ready to go through the pockets of the dead after a battlefield. Styke had considered Agoston a friend – not close enough for secrets, but a man he’d share a beer with at the end of the day.

Agoston glanced at Ibana, more irritated than afraid, and gave a deep sigh. “Styke,” he replied. “I’m not a sergeant anymore. Haven’t been since the war.”

“Yeah? And what have you been up to since the war?”

“A little bit of this, a little of that.”

Agoston’s nonchalance suddenly touched something within Styke, and he could feel a rage building deep in his stomach. “And this story the brothers are telling me? What do you make of that?”

“A bunch of rubbish.”

Ibana snorted. “He’s lying.”

“I am not,” Agoston protested.

“I played cards with you for eighteen months, asshole. You look down and to your left when you bluff.”

“I do not …” Agoston looked down and to his left, then grimaced. He sniffed, his mouth forming into a hard line.

When it became clear he would say no more, Styke began to pace. The anger was building, and he forced his voice to remain neutral, matching Agoston’s calm demeanor. “You betrayed the lancers, Agoston. You got me sent to the firing squad. Did you know what Fidelis Jes was planning?” There was a long, empty pause, and Styke added, “Don’t pull this silent bullshit on me. You can either answer the question or we can take a few minutes and bury you alive beneath this hovel.”

Agoston glanced around the room once more, and Styke could see the calculations going through his head: his chances of escaping, or putting up a good fight, or at least making them finish him off quickly. The corner of his lip curled, and Styke remembered something about his own experience playing cards with Agoston: He always got surly when he was losing. “Two million krana.”

Styke raised his eyebrows. “Pit. You’re joking, right?”

“Fidelis Jes really wanted you dead.”

“I knew that. But two million?” Styke scoffed. “I would have damned well just retired if he’d come to me first.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Agoston spat. “You like killing too much.”

“Maybe.” Styke acted careless, but on the inside he continued to boil. Agoston had been a comrade-in-arms, even a friend. To sell Styke out, even for so much money … He felt his facade crack and turned away for a moment so that Agoston couldn’t see the emotions playing out across his face. “Why didn’t you just put a knife between my ribs yourself?”

“Because I’m not stupid. These assholes would have hunted me down no matter where I went. There’s not enough money to knife Ben Styke.”

Styke almost gave Agoston credit for that underlying assumption that he could have finished the job. Almost. “And that money? Did you spend it well?”

“Bought a townhouse in Upper Landfall. Changed my name. Kept my head down. Spent the last decade whoring and gambling in places so expensive I was never likely to see a lancer again.” Agoston gave him a shallow smile. “So, yeah, I spent it well.”

Styke looked at his hand and flexed his fingers. Ten years in the labor camp, when only a couple miles away one of the people who put him there lived a life of luxury and excess. He’d known about Fidelis Jes, of course, and his hatred was one of the things that kept him alive. But Jes had always been an enemy. Agoston … not so much. Styke remained looking at the wall, facing away from Agoston. “Cut his bonds,” he said.

Ibana started. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Hesitantly, Ibana nodded to the brothers.

“You sure, sir?” Markus asked.

Styke nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He flexed his fingers, feeling that twinge, churning that rage. “Zac, do you have a pistol on you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is it loaded?”

“Yes.”

“Give it to Agoston.”

“Sir?”

“Now!” Styke turned around and glared at Zac, who licked his lips and glanced warily at Ibana. Styke held a hand toward her. “Don’t say a damned word. Zac, give him your pistol.”

Zac drew his pistol and handed it to Agoston as he climbed to his feet. Agoston brushed himself off and took the pistol, staring at Styke intently. “What’s this?” His tone said that he sensed a trap, but he didn’t know where it was.

Styke took a step toward him and spread his hands. “You wanted me dead. You were paid to help put me in a grave. It didn’t work, so here’s your shot to earn that two million. Put a bullet in my head.”

Without hesitation, Agoston lifted the pistol and took a half step forward, pressing the barrel against Styke’s forehead. He pulled the trigger, and Styke heard the click-and-snap of the flintlock.

Nothing happened.

“You think you’re hot shit, Agoston,” Styke said, finally letting his fury unfurl. “But you never paid attention. Zac still carries the same shitty, leaky powder horn he has for fifteen years. Powder gets wet and his pistol misfires two times out of three.”

As Styke finished the sentence, a look of panic spread across Agoston’s face. He backpedaled and tried to flip the pistol around to use it as a weapon, but Styke was on him before he could take a second step. Styke drew his boz knife, dragged the blade along Agoston’s sternum, and rammed it into the soft spot beneath his jaw until the crosspiece touched skin and the tip jutted from the top of his skull. Agoston’s eyes bugged, a rasping came from his mouth, and his body convulsed. Styke allowed his momentum to carry them against the far wall of the hovel and slammed Agoston’s body against the rotted timbers. The whole house shook.

His hands soaked with warm blood, Styke stared into Agoston’s dead eyes. “Who else betrayed me?” he asked the brothers quietly.

“Bad Tenny Wiles, Valyaine, and Dvory,” Markus answered.

“Where are they?”

“Tenny Wiles owns a plantation about a hundred miles west of here; Valyaine is a boxer in Belltower; and Dvory is a general in the Fatrastan Army.”

Styke let Agoston’s body fall. “Toss him in the rubbish heap out back. He doesn’t deserve a real burial.” He took a deep breath and clapped Markus, then Zac on the shoulder, leaving a bloody handprint on each. “Thank you. I needed that. Whatever happens these next few months, I’m going to find the rest of those assholes and kill them.” He looked at Ibana. “Let’s go find out what Flint is up to.”