Wrath of Empire

Chapter 17

Styke, Celine, and Ka-poel rode for three days in near silence, broken only by Celine’s occasional questions about the people and horses they passed on the road. They traveled against the flow of traffic as thousands of refugees left their homes and businesses and fled northwest in an attempt to stay ahead of the Dynize invaders.

Stories traveled with them: a thousand rumors that painted the Dynize as everything from blood-drinking monsters who snatched away Kressian youths, to liberators who brought with them freedom from the oppressive rule of Lindet and her Blackhats. Regardless of which rumor was carried by the passing travelers, everyone seemed to prefer taking their chances with the evil they knew – Lindet – rather than the evil they did not.

By the third day, Styke found the spring that gave birth to the Cottonseed tributary, a small river that meandered between plantation fields for about thirty miles, growing bigger until it joined the Cottonseed River and eventually poured into the Hadshaw. Styke stopped at the spring, washing the road dust off his face and instructing Celine to do the same before making sure his carbines were loaded and his knife was sharp. After a brief lunch, he lifted Celine back into the saddle and followed the banks of the tributary.

“What are we looking for?” Celine asked.

“The closest plantation.” Styke handed the reins to Celine and removed a skull-and-lance banner from his saddlebags before tying it to the tip of his lance and raising it above him.

They crossed several streams and a mile of plantation fields full of bonded Palo working desperately to harvest the half-grown fields. No one challenged Styke as he rode past, but Ka-poel received more than a few curious glances.

“Who are we going to kill?” Celine asked.

“Try not to sound so eager when you ask a question like that,” Styke retorted. “I’m going to kill a man named Bad Tenny Wiles.”

“And who is that?”

“One of the Mad Lancers,” Styke answered. “At least, he used to be. Sometimes he was a clerk, sometimes did some cooking. A mean son of a bitch – mean enough to keep the men from pilfering the rations when times were lean. But we were all mean back then.”

“Why do you want to kill him?”

He felt a knot tighten in his stomach. Over the years people had called him a brute, a murderer, even a monster. He’d been all those things and more, but the idea of killing someone who’d once ridden at his side was distasteful. Murdering Agoston had sated his rage the other night, but it had also left him feeling queasy. He supposed he could just forget the whole thing, but … vengeance needed having. “It’s complicated.”

“So?” She looked up at him expectantly.

“Do you know what ‘precocious’ means?”

“I know I’m one. Ibana said so.”

Ka-poel grinned openly at Styke.

“Of course she did.” Styke checked his knife and drew the blade down his whetstone a few times before stowing them both, taking the reins from Celine’s hands. He wondered if he was getting such a young child too used to the idea of blood and death, and had to remind himself that she’d seen men gut each other over a biscuit in the labor camps, and she’d watched her own father drown in the fens. He pointed to the sorcery-healed scar on his left hand between the knuckles of his third and fourth finger. “This,” he said, then pointed to his leg, then his face. “This, and this. All from the firing squad ten years ago.” The sorcerous healing of his wounds had come ten years too late, and they all still ached every day – and those two fingers still didn’t like to obey him.

Celine took Styke’s hand in hers, running her fingers over the wound, then across his knuckles. Her hands were tiny compared to his. “Did Tenny Wiles shoot at you?”

“Not exactly.”

Styke ignored Celine’s further questions as he spotted a nearby driveway and directed Amrec away from the riverbank. The drive ran beside the river for a few hundred yards and then across an open lawn to a manor house. The manor had the typical flat facade in the common style of Fatrastan plantations. As far as those went, it wasn’t immense – though it was obviously the home of a rich man. The fountain out front was in disrepair, the paint on the shutters peeling, but otherwise the house and grounds were in decent condition for an older home.

Styke felt his queasiness increase, and he thought about Agoston’s blood on his hands and arms and pictured the look on Tenny Wiles’s face as he gutted him. Killing old comrades. A dirty business, even for him.

A carriage and a dozen wagons filled the drive just outside the front door, and a flurry of activity filled the vestibule as servants rushed to load the wagons with furniture and supplies.

Styke caught sight of Bad Tenny Wiles standing on the front step, directing the whole thing. Tenny was probably five years younger than Styke, and hadn’t borne the rigors of the labor camps, but he did not look good. His split nose was red and runny, and the side of his face with the missing ear was covered in the scars of a past infection. But it was definitely Tenny – just wearing expensive clothes.

Everyone was so focused on packing the house that they didn’t seem to notice Styke as he came up the drive, rounded the fountain, and dismounted. He pulled Celine down and set her next to Amrec, handing her the reins. “Stay here,” he said. The knot in his stomach was still there, but he could feel it loosening beneath the resolute feeling of a job that needed doing.

“I could come with.”

“You don’t need to watch me skin a man.” He pointed at Ka-poel. “You stay here, too.”

He left Celine scowling at his back as he headed through the bustle of the servants and toward the front door, stopping just a few feet from the bottom step. He sighed, a hand on the hilt of his knife, and let his weight fall on his good leg as he waited for Tenny to notice him.

It didn’t take long. Tenny directed two servants maneuvering a feather mattress out the door, pointing to one of the wagons. On noticing Styke, his mouth opened and he blinked in confusion. Slowly, the blood drained from his face.

“Hello, Tenny,” Styke said.

Bad Tenny Wiles, the scourge of unwary Kez infantry, began to tremble. It started in his hands, then moved through his body until Styke thought he might convulse and fall to the ground in a fit. He waited for a weapon to appear in Tenny’s hands, and the quick exchange of blood to follow. He did not expect Tenny to turn and flee into the house.

The pounding of retreating footsteps surprised Styke, and it took him a moment to follow. He passed startled servants, listening to Tenny’s shouts, and followed them up the grand staircase to the second floor. He paused for a moment on the landing, the house suddenly silent.

“You there!” a servant called, mounting the stairs below Styke with a firepoker in his hand.

Styke pointed his knife at the man, then continued upward. No one followed.

He prowled the second floor, glancing in each room, moving with slow, deliberate steps. He expected the blast of a blunderbuss as he opened every door, or the ring of a pistol shot. But he found the master bedroom without encountering an ambush.

Tenny stood in the center of the room alone, supporting himself on one corner of a four-poster bed. He’d stilled his trembles, and he held a pistol in one hand, pointed at Styke. “Not another step,” he growled. “I don’t care if you’re a ghost or the real thing, but I will pull this trigger.”

“Do you think you can finish with one bullet what a firing squad couldn’t with twenty?” Styke asked. He entered the room, glancing around for a bevy of servants waiting to jump him. There was no one else, so he let himself relax slightly, glancing around at the furniture and ceiling as if he meant to buy the place. “What was your price, Tenny?” he asked. “How much did Fidelis Jes pay you to betray me? Was it this place? A whole plantation? I’ll admit you got a good deal. I hope you enjoyed the last ten years more than I did.”

Tenny’s pistol didn’t waver. “How did you know? Pit, how are you still alive? Jes told me they finished the job!”

Styke had once watched Tenny kill a whole squad of grenadiers with a broken sword after one of them cut off his ear. He’d never heard that edge of panic in Bad Tenny Wiles’s voice. But seeing a ghost will do that to a man.

“I spent ten years in the labor camps thinking that Fidelis Jes had arranged my failed execution – then disappearance – without any of my men knowing. I shouldn’t have been so naive. I got out two months ago, re-formed the Mad Lancers, and helped defend Landfall. So how do I know? Turns out you didn’t come to my funeral. Markus and Zac noticed, and they found out that you and a few others got paid off by the Blackhats. Doesn’t take much math to figure out why.”

“I didn’t –”

Styke cut him off. “I know, Tenny. I killed Agoston a few days ago.”

“Does everyone else know?” Tenny whispered.

“Me, Ibana, Jackal. Markus and Zac,” Styke said. “I haven’t decided whether to take your head back to show the rest. You’re lucky Ibana isn’t here. She would –”

As Styke spoke, the muzzle of Tenny’s pistol suddenly dipped, then jerked up toward his mouth. Tenny grabbed the muzzle in his lips and squeezed his eyes shut.

Styke crossed the room in two quick strides and jerked the pistol out of Tenny’s hand. He tossed it on the bed, grasping Tenny by the front of his suit and shaking him hard enough to rattle his teeth. Tenny reached for a knife at his belt, but Styke slapped it away and lifted Tenny off the ground. He drew his boz knife and held the tip to Tenny’s throat. A quick jerk, and Styke would have another traitor’s lifeblood spilling down his arms.

“You don’t get to take your own life,” Styke snarled. “You gave up that privilege the moment you betrayed me and the lancers.”

“I didn’t want to, damn it! Agoston and Dvory talked me into it. They said we were better without you, and Fidelis Jes, he –”

Styke shook him again. “Don’t mention that piece of shit. You know what I did after Landfall last month? I found Jes and cut his damned head off and sent it to Lindet.” He looked around the room, feeling angry and sick. “You traded me for this, Tenny. Don’t worry, because you only have to live with it for a few more minutes.”

Finish the job, he told himself silently. Have it done and be gone. He thought of Agoston’s blood and squeezed his eyes shut.

“You don’t have to do it, Ben,” Tenny whispered.

“Oh, shut up.” Styke carried Tenny across the room and threw him out the big bay window.

Glass shattered, and Tenny’s scream was undercut by a shrill one from the closet. Styke whirled as the closet opened, and a woman in her early twenties burst forth. Two young children hid among the clothes inside, frightened, staring at Styke – a crippled giant of a man with a fighting knife as long as a sword. The woman looked from him to the window and took a step back, her eyes rolling like those of a frightened horse.

“Stay here,” Styke ordered. He strode into the hall to find a crowd of worried servants. Shoving them aside, he headed downstairs and out to the side of the house, where he found Tenny lying on the lawn among broken glass and fragments of a windowsill. Tenny’s eyes were closed, his arm bent beneath him and obviously broken, but his chest rose and fell. He gnashed his teeth against the pain, trying to move.

Tenny’s eyes shot open as Styke approached. “Why are you still alive?” he whispered between gritted teeth.

Styke squatted beside him, knife loose in his hand. Above them both, the woman stood at the window, wailing. “Because none of the gods have invented anything to kill me yet,” he replied. “Don’t pretend this is a surprise. You knew who and what I was when you decided to sell me to Fidelis Jes.” He tapped the tip of his knife against Tenny’s collarbone.

Tenny trembled, but Styke could tell that it was from pain, and no longer fear. He could see the acceptance of a dead man in Tenny’s eyes. “Gut me,” Tenny said. “Flay me. Do what you need to do. I deserve it. But leave these people out of it. Don’t do it in the sight of my wife and children. I know who and what you are, Colonel, and I know you are better than that.”

Styke glanced up at the window again. The woman had disappeared, and only servants stared down at him. He could still hear her wailing. He wondered if begging had ever stalled the blade of the old Ben Styke – if the invocation of a wife and children had ever kept him from a bloody deed. If it had, it was a long time ago.

He felt eyes on him, and glanced over his shoulder to find Celine standing by the corner of the house. She still clutched Amrec’s reins, and the big horse nibbled at the grass without a care in the world. Stone-faced, Celine watched Styke, eyeing the knife in his hand and the man at his feet. Ka-poel stood behind her with an appraising look in her eye.

“Finish it, Styke,” Tenny said. “Don’t make me linger. It’s not your style. Drag me into those woods over there. Finish the job. Just don’t do it in front of them.”

Styke frowned at Celine. The girl’s head was cocked to the side as if she were watching a butcher about to cut up a side of beef. He felt conflicted, that war between his lust for vengeance and the sickness brought on by killing his own men. Celine scowled at him, clearly finding something amiss.

Styke bowed his head. Tenny deserved to die, no question about that. But Styke couldn’t help but hesitate. He took a deep breath, let out a sigh, and tapped Tenny’s collarbone with the tip of his knife again.

“Get that arm set and wrapped,” he heard himself say softly as he stood. “The Dynize are close by. If you leave by sundown, you might outrun their scouts. The river valley is choked with refugees, so you’ll want to go southwest.”

“What are you doing?” Tenny gasped. He tried to sit up, voice dripping with suspicion.

“I’m not gonna skin an old comrade in front of his own household. Even if you deserve it. Get out of here, Tenny. Change your name. You should probably leave the country. If Ibana ever finds you, she’ll turn you into a rug.” Styke sheathed his knife and headed back to Celine. He took Amrec’s reins.

“I thought you were gonna skin him,” Celine said.

“Nobody likes a bloodthirsty little git,” Styke said, swinging into the saddle. Celine climbed up in front of him.

“I’m not bloodthirsty,” she protested. “I was just curious. Why didn’t you kill him?”

Styke took her by the shoulder. He searched her eyes for eagerness or disappointment. Finding neither, he flipped the reins. “Hardest thing a soldier can do is leave the killing behind him. Tenny didn’t sell me out for money or power. He sold me out for a better life. Shitty thing to do, but he went somewhere he couldn’t hear the hooves and the cannons and became a good husband to a fat little country girl. He did what I should have done twenty-five years ago.”

“So you’re just gonna let him go?”

“I’m just gonna let him go,” Styke confirmed. The rage still burned in his chest, but that queasiness was now gone. “I’ve got plenty of killing to do. One less mark on my knife handle won’t make a difference. Just don’t tell Ibana.”