Wrath of Empire

Chapter 21

Vlora, Taniel, and Little Flerring relocated to a small complex of cabins deep in the forest on a gently sloped hillside. Flerring pointed at each of the buildings as they passed, explaining their uses. Most of the buildings were used for the creation and storage of black powder, but a few stone huts way up the hillside away from all the others were set aside for the substance that had made the Flerring family a household name throughout the Nine: blasting oil.

“We do everything explosive,” she explained to Taniel as they headed up a path to a cabin sheltered from all the others by a large boulder. “Black powder was our original trade, and still makes up the volume of our production. You’d be surprised at how many different mixes there are for mining applications. Explosive velocity, temperature, humidity – all these things have to be taken into account when we decide the formula and granule size.”

“Just like mixing powder for military use,” Taniel said.

“But far more complex!” Flerring declared. “Out here in the mountains, you’ve got to be more careful. I’m handing explosives over to idiots from all over the world, most of whom have never even fired a gun, let alone drilled into solid rock and detonated explosives in the hole. I’ve got to know what kind of rock it is, the altitude, the depth of the mine.” She scoffed. “I do everything I can to make it simple for the miners, but people still die every day.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Vlora said. “I’m surprised you’re on-site, rather than one of your people.”

Flerring made a sound in the back of her throat. “I’m on-site because I’m making a damned fortune selling these miners blasting oil. Transportation has been banned all over the Nine due to … accidents … so the damned stuff has to be mixed in person. I wanted to do a little traveling anyway, so …” She shrugged and unlocked the cabin, ushering them inside. It was cozy without being cramped, with space enough for perhaps a dozen people to gather around a potbellied stove or half that many to enjoy a game of cards.

Flerring stoked the fire and put on a kettle, then kicked her boots off. “So that’s why I’m here. You going to tell me what a dead war hero and a decorated Adran general are doing in the armpit of Fatrasta?”

Vlora had been struggling with how much to actually tell Flerring. She was perfectly trustworthy – after all, someone in the explosives business has to know how to keep secrets to keep a leg up on her competitors – but this wasn’t the kind of information she wanted spread around.

Taniel gestured toward Vlora, as if to say, She’s your friend.

“We’re looking for an artifact,” Vlora said. “You’ve heard about the war?”

“Everyone has,” Flerring replied. “Word just arrived the other day that Landfall fell. We’re so far off the beaten path that no one here wants to abandon their claim, but if the fighting swerves this way, my bags are packed.”

“Right. Well, we’re looking for an artifact, an ancient bit of Dynize sorcery that should be floating around nearby.”

“Is floating around nearby,” Taniel corrected.

Vlora went on. “This artifact is the reason the Dynize are invading. It has both Lindet and the Dynize scrambling to find it.”

“And you want to get to it first?”

Vlora glanced at Taniel, whose expression was unreadable. “We want to destroy it,” she said.

“Huh.” Flerring moved a few bits around on the table next to her until she found a boning knife and began to pick her teeth with it. “What does it do?”

“It grants power,” Taniel said quickly. “Sorcerous power. The kind we don’t want anyone to get their hands on.”

“So you’re here to find it and blow it up?”

“Maybe,” Vlora said hesitantly. “We have to find it, but we might have to figure out how to steal it. We tried blowing up a matching artifact outside of Landfall with enough black powder to level a city and it didn’t do shit.”

Flerring snorted. “You military types think you know how to blow things up properly.”

“I’d like to see you do better,” Taniel said.

Flerring sat forward as if intrigued. “I’m guessing by your presence that this is a matter of the Adran Cabal?”

“It is,” Vlora said.

“Well, then, as a representative of the Adran government and for a small consulting fee, I would be delighted to try.”

Vlora realized, without even knowing it, that she’d been hoping Flerring would make the offer. The thought pleased her to no end, but there was a niggling feeling in the back of her head that not even Flerring’s blasting oil could damage the powerful sorceries protecting the godstone. “Consider yourself hired. But we still have to find the thing.”

“Not sure if I can help with that,” Flerring said. The kettle began to boil, and she got up and poured them each a cup of tea, then disappeared beneath the floor and returned a moment later with a handful of shaved ice, plunking a bit in each cup. “I’ve been here a while. If someone had found a sorcerous artifact, I think I would have heard about it by now.”

“Perhaps,” Taniel said. “It might be buried. It might be actively hidden. If you’re willing to help us find it, we can do more than whatever the fee the Adran government will give you.”

“Fascinating.” Flerring continued to pick at her teeth with the knife, her face thoughtful. “It’s a bad time to ask questions, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“What is going on?” Vlora asked, sipping her tea. “We got a little of it from the hotel manager. Some kind of power struggle?”

“You could say that. Everyone wants the gold, but not everyone wants to work for it. Now, when we talk about gold sniffers in Yellow Creek, you’ve got freelance fools digging their own holes or panning for gold in the streams, and you’ve got hired fellas. The hired fellas work for one of two bosses, and those bosses own all the big claims in the surrounding hills.” She held up two fingers. “There’s Jezzy, the owner of the Pink Saloon. Her boys are called the Shovels. Then there’s Brown Bear Burt. He’s a Palo out of Redstone who made a fortune selling family land to Lindet after his whole tribe died to disease. Burt’s hired fellas call themselves the Picks.”

Vlora leaned back, trying to take it all in, rubbing her eyes. “Don’t these guys know there’s a war on?”

“You try to tell a desperate man he should abandon his claim to possible riches and he will gut you seven ways from sundown.” Flerring sighed. “Some of the independent miners are getting smart – selling their claims or closing things off to wait out the war. But not Jezzy and Burt. Those two are locked in a feud for control of the mines and won’t let up till one of them is dead or the Dynize roll into town to claim the whole lot.”

“We might be able to use this to our advantage,” Taniel said thoughtfully. “With all this chaos, we need to find the artifact and get out of here before Lindet even knows where we are.”

“Seems like a good call.” Flerring spat on the floor. “You know that bitch tried to kidnap me? Had some muscle up here six months ago trying to take me to Landfall. Had to run them off with a couple vials of blasting oil, then make it clear to her that if she ever wants to do business with the Flerring Company, she will wait until I come to her.”

“I’ve met Lindet,” Vlora said. “I can’t imagine she took that well.”

Flerring spat again, then finished her tea. “I don’t care how she took it. Brute force has no place in the business of explosives, no matter how incongruous that may seem. It’s all careful, planned, and gentle.” She squinted toward the window, nodding to herself. “Sun’s going down. I need to do my rounds before dark, and you should get back to town.”

She walked them to their horses and then said good-bye before heading to one of the outbuildings.

Vlora and Taniel returned to their hotel just at dark and had dinner in the great room. The food was better than road rations – barely – with watered-down beer and unidentifiable meat. They spoke quietly about Flerring and their search for the stone.

“I figure,” Vlora said as they finished eating, “we have two or three weeks until Olem gets here with the army. Those hills and narrow roads are going to slow them down, and I told him to take it easy. If luck is with us, we can find the stone and figure out a way to destroy or move it before they arrive. We sneak in a group of men and we can be out of here without having to bring in the army.”

Taniel’s eyes roamed the great room. “Lots of armed men,” he said. “If it comes to a fight, they won’t stand a chance against the Riflejacks, but the last thing we need is locals seeing an army and digging in. They’ll slow us down. We keep our own heads down while we search. Don’t let anyone know who we are. And we’ve got to stay out of this Picks and Shovels nonsense.”

“You won’t hear an argument from me,” Vlora said.

Taniel put aside his plate and produced a leather satchel, flipping it open to reveal a sketchbook. Vlora felt the corner of her mouth tug upward, and she found herself happy to see that Taniel still enjoyed his old hobby. She remembered posing with Bo and Tamas as a child, while Taniel – face serious – forced them all to sit still for hours while he perfected his charcoal drawings.

She didn’t pry, but a glimpse at the pages as he flipped them told her that he’d gotten much better since then.

“That,” Taniel said, nodding across the room, “is a funny-looking man.” He opened to a fresh page and began to sketch.

Vlora would have loved to stay and watch him work, but she needed some time alone to think – and a full night’s sleep would do her damned good. She fetched a bottle of wine from the barkeep and headed upstairs, gently tapping each door as she passed it until she reached the number that matched her room key. Rubbing her eyes, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

She was surprised, when she blinked through her tired haze, to find the room already occupied. Three men waited in the room – all of them big, all of them heavily armed, and all of them with the kind of grizzled faces that looked like they’d been run over by a brigade of cuirassiers. One stood by the window, one leaned against the wall, and one reclined on her bed, grinning at her in what he must have thought was a friendly manner.

Vlora took them all in sourly. Her saddlebags sat next to the bed, so this wasn’t the wrong room. “I paid for clean linens, asshole,” she told the one on the bed.

The man’s grin faded and he stood up, crossing the small room to tower above her. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

Vlora looked up at him and resisted the urge to cut his throat. People didn’t loom like that unless they were trying to intimidate, and her height meant she had to deal with confident, tall idiots all the time. She could kill all three of them before they could draw their swords, but now was not the time or the place. “Can I help you gentlemen with something?”

“Back off, Dorner,” the man by the wall said. Dorner, Vlora noted, was a Brudanian name. The man continued. “We were told a pair of mercenaries had checked into the hotel this afternoon, and were unaware of the circumstances surrounding the, uh, local politics.”

The last two words made Vlora want to punch him really hard. Instead, she forced a smile on her face. “And what are you doing in my room?”

“Recruiting,” the one called Dorner said in a deep growl. “You’re unaligned, and nobody in this town with a sword is allowed to be unaligned.”

“And which one of these clubs do you idiots belong to?” Vlora asked. She leaned back against the door, slumping casually, her hands within easy reach of both her weapons.

Dorner drew himself up. “We’re Jezzy’s Shovels, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll sign up with us tonight.”

“What Dorner means,” the man leaning on the wall said, “is that Jezzy pays the best, and she’s not a greasy Palo. We’ll pay a hundred a week for your sword and we’ll give you a place to bunk.”

Vlora pretended to consider. “Not interested,” she finally said.

Dorner loomed closer. “Excuse me?”

“I said I’m not interested. I came up here for some easy work guarding a mine or a caravan. This city is hot as a powder barrel over a fire and I’m not interested in getting into some stupid turf war.”

“Listen, bitch,” Dorner growled, “you’re either with us or against us. You can –”

Vlora’s palm hit him beneath the chin, snapping his neck back and spraying her face with blood. He stumbled back, crimson pouring out of his mouth. He spat half his tongue onto the floor and immediately began to scream, pawing at his face.

The man by the window rounded the bed, drawing a cudgel, but even without a powder trance Vlora was faster. She punched him hard in the gut, doubling him over, then slammed his head against the wall hard enough to put him out cold. In the same motion she drew her pistol, pointing it at the man leaning against the wall. His hand fell away from his sword.

“You tell your boss,” Vlora said, “that I’m not interested in playing in a turf war. I don’t give a shit about your sides, and I’d like to be left alone until I see fit to check out of this fine establishment. Is that civilized enough for you?”

The man raised his hands, palms out. “I get it, I get it.”

“You were polite, so I’m not gonna smash your face in. Take your asshole friends and get out.”

The man pushed his now tongueless companion out the door, leaving so quickly that they forgot their third member lying unconscious on the floor. Vlora stared down at the prone figure and sighed, putting her pistol back in her belt. She reached down and took him by the hair, dragging him out the door and down the hall, then down the stairs while the entire great hall watched in silence.

Taniel sat in the corner, head in his hands, while Vlora dragged the body up to the manager’s podium. The squirrelly little man stared at her, eyes wide. “Is … is … is … there something I can do for you, ma’am?” he stuttered.

“You can leave this guy somewhere until he wakes up,” Vlora said. “He shouldn’t be out more than a minute or two. Send someone up to my room with fresh linens and to clean the blood and the bit of tongue off my floor.” Vlora took a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped the red spatter off her face.

“Did you say ‘tongue’?”

“I did. And if you’d be so kind as to not sell my comings and goings to the town big bosses, I’ll be kind enough not to feed you your own toes. Good night.”