Брайан Макклеллан - Wrath of Empire

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.