Брайан Макклеллан - Wrath of Empire

Styke stood on the bank of the river for some time, watching the bats flutter overhead in the twilight and listening to the sound of crickets. He ran his hands over his face, taking deep breaths of the humid air.

He’d only ever been here three times in his life, but the place had a biting familiarity that threatened to bring tears to his eyes. Everything about the location was burned into his brain, from the mud of the riverbank to the moss on the boulder to the sound the breeze made as it rattled the leaves of the beech trees.

Taking one last deep breath, he finally turned away from the river and walked to the other side of the rock. He counted out thirty paces and found a big, white-sided beech. Bending over, he felt along the trunk until he found a set of deep grooves in the side. The letter “M,” carved by a boy several decades ago.

Styke began to clear around the base of the beech, pulling away vines and slashing shrubs with his knife. It only took a few minutes to find the stone – a rectangular slab of white marble about the size of a bread box. He methodically cleared around it, then off to one side, where he kindled a small fire that cast just enough light so that he could continue to work.

Soon, the tiny grove was cleared of underbrush and the white marble scraped clean of thirty years of moss and grime. The edges were worn, the letters faded a little with time, but he could still make out the name “Marguerie ja Lind” and a set of dates. He knew what to expect, but he still let out a small gasp when he saw them, squeezing his eyes closed against unbidden tears.

He sat on his haunches beside the stone – for how long, he was not sure. He did not speak, or pray, or even think. His meditation was devoid of any direction.

After some time, he finally got to his feet and stoked the fire, laying out his bedroll across from the grave and leaning up against the big beech tree with the bottle of whiskey in one hand, a bag of sugar cubes in the other, and Amrec’s nose nuzzling his ear every so often as he slowly fed him the cubes.

He watched the embers float on the heat above the fire and listened to the night noises until, sometime around midnight, they grew silent. Eyes closed, head back, he drew his knife and lay it across his knee before taking a swig of whiskey. Amrec snorted.

When he opened his eyes again, he was not alone. The man standing beside the grave was familiar. The sides of his head were meticulously shaved to leave a bright-red mohawk that was tied back in a knot over his left ear. His face was sun-hardened, the freckles thick across the bridge of his nose, black tattoos spiraling up his neck to touch his cheeks.

The dragonman did not look at Styke. He stared down at the gravestone, his brow furrowed. His duster was pulled back to show a bone ax in his belt, but he did not reach for it. In halting Palo, he asked, “Whose grave is this?”

Styke struggled to remember the dragonman’s name. He was sure he’d heard it during his encounter with the group back in Granalia. After a few moments it came to him: Ji-Orz.

“It’s my mother’s,” Styke told him.

“When did she die?”

The question was deeply personal, and Styke would normally have reacted violently to anyone asking after his mother. But somehow, here in the darkness with another killer, it seemed like a natural thing to talk about.

“When I was a boy.” He tried to remember the dates on the stone. It was too dark to see them. “Thirty-three years ago, I think.”

“Disease?”

“My father’s drunken rage.”

Ji-Orz’s frown deepened. “What fueled his rage?”

“I don’t remember. Something trivial, probably. He killed my mother and he went after my baby sister.”

Ji-Orz glanced around, as if looking for another gravestone. Not seeing one, he moved to the fire and hunkered down so that he, Styke, and the grave created a three-pointed star around the flames. He stared at Styke, eyes unblinking. “I wish to know what happened, if you’ll tell me.”

The oddness of speaking so freely to a man who’d come to kill him finally caught up to Styke. He tapped a finger on the hilt of his knife. “Why?”

“Because I like to collect stories of people I meet.”

“People you kill?”

“Sometimes. Not usually.” Ji-Orz gazed into the flames, a brief smile touching his lips. “My mother told me stories, long ago. Before this.” He tapped the bone ax hanging from his belt. “Stories are all I have left of her.”

Styke looked down at the bottle of whiskey. “My mother used to sing. I don’t have anything left of hers, though. My sister might. I don’t know.” He paused, considering the dragonman’s previous question. “I murdered my father before he could reach my sister.”

“Good.” Ji-Orz nodded, as if patricide were a perfectly normal route.

“That drunken piece of shit,” Styke continued, “rests in a mausoleum on the old family property. It wasn’t right to put my mother in there with him, so I brought her here, where she grew up.” Styke nodded into the darkness. “She was born in a cabin about a hundred yards from here. Just a rotten ruin now.” Styke laughed softly to himself, remembering. “I was just a kid. Didn’t even think to bring a shovel. I dug the grave with my hands.” He still had tiny scars on his fingers where the rocky soil had cut them to ribbons.

He shook his head to dispel the memory, then took another swig of his whiskey. He wondered who would move first – he or the dragonman – and contemplated snatching up his knife. He looked at the gravestone, then at the dragonman.

“Are your friends sneaking up behind me?” Styke asked.

Ji-Orz shook his head. “We split up when we realized you were no longer with the army. I believe I’m the only one who found your trail.”

“You probably shouldn’t have told me that.” Unless, Styke considered, he was lying.

“I do not want to be here.” The words were spoken quietly but forcefully.

Styke sat up straight, watching the dragonman carefully.

Ji-Orz continued. “I fought on the wrong side of the civil war. Ka-Sedial’s people murdered my emperor and brokered a peace. I did not accept their emperor, so I was disgraced. I spent years in the darkest dungeons. Forgotten, until Ka-Sedial found a use for me.”

“The six sent after me,” Styke asked, genuinely curious, “they’re all disgraced?”

“Ka-Sedial is vain, wrathful, and arrogant, but he is not stupid. He would not waste six dragonmen on you – on a single person. But in the eyes of our people we no longer exist. He took the useless and found something for us to do. If we bring him your head, we are allowed to be people again.” There was a faraway look in Ji-Orz’s eyes, and Styke wondered if this promise of freedom made the dragonmen reckless, or whether it made them more dangerous.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Ji-Orz looked at the gravestone and sighed. “Because I want you to know it’s not personal.”

“War is rarely personal.”

“War is always personal,” Ji-Orz said with an affronted expression. “The very act of taking the life of another human being makes it so. But this time is not –” He stopped talking, clearly frustrated. “Perhaps I don’t get across my meaning. Ka-Sedial has our blood. Do you know what this means?”

“Vaguely.”

“It means he can compel us, even across great distances. He can whisper in our ears and pry truths from our minds.”

“That is … unsettling.”

“It is rape,” Ji-Orz said flatly. “But Ka-Sedial is not perfect. He cannot watch us all the time. And tonight … I will not fight a man on his mother’s grave. I am a warrior, not a savage.”

Styke wondered if this was all a ploy, if Ji-Orz said these things to get him to lower his guard. There was an earnestness in his face as he struggled to find the right words that compelled Styke to believe him. Yet there was still a doubt. He remembered Kushel’s willingness to hurt Celine back in Landfall, and half expected a knife to come out of the darkness and slash his throat at any minute.