Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

Flint didn’t acknowledge Olem’s arrival. “So what do you have for me?”

“An arrest.” Michel handed over the file he’d been given that morning.

Olem choked on the smoke from his cigarette. “You brought our entire army down here to arrest someone?” He took the file from Lady Flint’s hands and flipped it open, reading furiously.

Michel turned away, looking at the soldiers unloading the keelboats, considering his words carefully. He was simply here to pass on orders. That didn’t mean he had to like the orders. “The Palo used to be a disorganized collection of tribes and city-states scattered across Fatrasta. They fought among themselves more than they fought the Kressians, and were never more than a minor threat to Fatrastan colonies.”

“That still seems to be the case on the frontier,” Flint said.

“Not in Landfall. They’ve become organized; focused. Freedom fighters like the Red Hand send their agents here to stir up trouble. They strike and hold protests. Their riots are planned. The Palo in Landfall are in open sedition against the Lady Chancellor’s government.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Flint said.

Michel held up a hand. “We’re not asking you to slaughter anyone in the streets. The Lady Chancellor has no interest in making war against her own people. We just need you to arrest their local leader.”

“A single person?” Flint asked flatly. “I would think such an act would be within the power of the Blackhats.”

Michel met her eyes. “I wish it was that simple. No one knows where she is or what she looks like. Mama Palo is a ghost. Every attempt at arresting her has ended up either a dead end or a fiasco. All we know about her is that she’s an old woman and that she’s united the local Palo beneath her.”

“You want us to bring in someone’s grandmother so you can hang her?”

“Cut off the head of the snake,” Michel said. “Once Mama Palo is dead, the Palo will go back to fighting each other and the Blackhats can bring stability to the city.” At least, he added to himself silently, that’s the theory.

Flint chewed on this for several moments, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. She exchanged a long glance with Olem, some silent communication passing between them.

“There’s a reason you called us back with a whole brigade,” Olem said.

“Yes,” Michel admitted. “Do you know anything about Greenfire Depths?”

“Not really,” Flint said.

“It’s a pit. An immense, ancient quarry on the western side of the plateau. It’s almost a mile across, stuffed with old tenements, filled to the brim with Palo. Palo homes, businesses, churches. No intelligent Kressian enters Greenfire Depths after dark, and Blackhats will only go there in force. Mama Palo is hiding somewhere in that rat’s nest and it’ll take an army to find her and bring her out.” It did seem odd to him that Fidelis Jes would bring so many soldiers into the city to arrest one person. But the situation with the Palo had gotten bad and besides, it almost seemed like Jes was hoping Lady Flint would start slaughtering people in the streets. Not that Michel was going to tell her that.

“It sounds,” Flint said, “like you’re asking me to invade your own city.”

“The Lady Chancellor leaves the details to you,” Michel said, giving Flint a tight smile. He didn’t like the whole idea, but he was certainly glad it wasn’t his job. “She gives you full authority to operate within the Depths – short of burning the whole thing down, of course.”

“That is, unfortunately, the best way to find a needle in a haystack,” Flint muttered. “Assuming we agree, what kind of support can you give us?”

“Any intelligence we have on hand. We can provide logistical support for your men – food, lodging, ammunition, et cetera. We’re also willing to pay you for an entire year’s contract.”

“That sounds fair,” Olem commented.

His input seemed enough for Flint. “All right,” she said. “How long do we have?”

“A month. But the Lady Chancellor would be very pleased if you found Mama Palo before that.”

“I’ll need every scrap of information you have on the Depths,” Flint said. “Maps, information on factions, businesses. Everything you can give me.”

“It’ll be done,” Michel said. “We have a few agents within the Depths. I’ll make introductions.” He produced a small square of stationery from his pocket, handing it to Flint. “Here’s my card if you need to find me. I’ll check in as frequently as I can. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Flint ran her fingers over the embossed edge of the card, frowning. “I did have one question. Have you ever heard of a Palo wearing the skin of a swamp dragon and carrying bone axes?”

“No,” Michel said after a moment’s consideration. It sounded familiar – a story he’d been told as a child, perhaps – but nothing sprang immediately to mind. “I don’t think I’ve heard of that before. Any reason you ask?”

“We ran into one of them putting down the uprising at Fort Samnan. Fought like a madman, killed or wounded nearly forty of my men. I’ve never seen anything like it short of a powder mage or a Privileged.”

Michel shrugged. It sounded like nonsense. Stories from the frontier were frequently embellished, even by otherwise levelheaded people. He preferred to let them slide without any real scrutiny. Even if they were true, his territory was Landfall and its citizens – not whatever god-awful things were lurking out there in the swamps. “I should get back to work,” he said, gesturing at the business card in her hand. “Call on me if there’s anything you need.”

He made his good-byes and drifted through the disembarking soldiers, then across the marketplace as he forced his mind to shift from one task to another, Flint and her men already put out of his mind by the time he reached the main thoroughfare.

Lady Flint would be, he decided, left to her own devices. Finding the Iron Roses, and doing so in a sufficiently short time so as to please Fidelis Jes, was going to take all his effort. And he might have to piss a few people off to do so.

Vlora watched the Blackhat retreat toward the market street before turning to Olem.

“What did you think of that?” she asked.

Olem puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette, reading the newspaper clipping that Michel had handed Vlora. “Not a bad fellow. For a spy.”

Vlora frowned after Michel. “Seemed more like a bureaucrat to me. They wouldn’t waste a real spy on us, would they?”

“Definitely a spy,” Olem said. “You notice his face? Plain, clean-shaven, ordinary? Think you could describe him to me right now, even though he just walked away?”

“No,” Vlora said after a moment’s consideration. “I couldn’t.”

“Nobody with such a forgettable face works for the Blackhats as a regular old pencil-pusher,” Olem said. “And the Silver Rose? That’s middle management. Someone his age only gets a Silver Rose if he’s distinguished himself.”

“I didn’t know Blackhats have ranks,” Vlora said.

“Iron, Bronze, Brass, Silver, and Gold. But from what I understand their ranking system is skewed. The power belongs to the Gold Roses, and then there’s everyone else. It’s not that dissimilar from the Riflejacks,” he added with a grin. “Lady Flint is in charge, then the rest of us poor sods.”

Vlora took Olem’s cigarette from him, taking a long drag and blowing the smoke toward the open sea. She got her first chance to really look around at their location. They stood on the slice of land between Landfall Plateau and the bay. Behind them the Hadshaw River wound through a gorge that split the Landfall Plateau in two. Before them, the river fed into a wide, tranquil bay protected from the ocean by a mixture of natural and man-made breakers. The smell of salt rode heavily on the air and gulls cried overhead.