Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

“Nobody knows for sure,” Michel said, clearing his throat. His brief sense of wonder was replaced with helpful professionalism. “We suspect it’s somewhere around two hundred thousand, though.”

“All crammed in that hole?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s bigger than it looks, though. The tenements have whole road systems between floors, with cables that support hammocks and community spaces. There’s even rumors that they’ve mined into the floor and gotten the old quarry pumps working again for subterranean space. They make use of every inch down there, going up and down. They have to.”

“And it’s all Palo?”

“Mostly,” Michel said. “You get the occasional pocket of Kressian immigrants that don’t know any better. Probably a few thousand old veterans that the Palo leave alone. But yes. Lots of Palo.”

Vlora couldn’t imagine such a thing. Even in Adopest, the worst slums tended to be no bigger than a few blocks, and they were scattered about the city. Here Landfall had managed to combine all of its slums and jam them into a literal hole in the ground. It was like a deep, festering sore on the Landfall Plateau, and the Lady Chancellor expected her mercenary company to sift through that to find a single Palo.

Well. No sense in waiting around. “I’m going to go take a look,” Vlora said, heading back down the stairs without a backward glance. A few hundred men were already inside the fort, cleaning up the abandoned shantytown and inventorying supplies as the soldiers streamed through the gate. She passed Olem, got her sword and pistol from her horse, and fixed both to her belt. “I’m going for a walk,” she told him.

Olem frowned. “You should have an escort.”

“No need for that,” she said firmly. This was often a prickly subject, and she had no interest in a fight. “I’m not Tamas, and I’d rather not attract attention.”

Michel caught up with her just outside the fort. “Lady Flint!”

“Ah, Agent Bravis. Will you accompany me on my walk?”

Michel examined her with a mixture of horror and alarm. “It’s just Michel, ma’am. You’re not planning on going down into the Depths, are you?”

“I want to take a quick look around.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“You go down there and you won’t come back up.”

Vlora peered closely at Michel. He was genuinely worried. The man seemed absolutely certain that Greenfire Depths was some sort of a death trap. Based on the construction alone she might agree, but… “You are aware I’m a powder mage?”

“Even powder mages can get lost. Or ambushed. Or overwhelmed.”

Vlora knew that better than most. She remembered a campaign through the north of Kez, hunted by overwhelming numbers, cutting her way through enemy territory with the very men she eventually formed into her mercenary company. She’d survived that. She could survive a Palo slum.

“I think I can handle myself, Agent Bravis.”

“I’m sure you can, ma’am, and I say this with the deepest respect – it’s a maze. You won’t be able to find your way out.”

“Could you?”

“Of course, ma’am, but I’ve lived in Landfall my whole life, back before the Depths belonged to the Palo.”

“Well, then,” Vlora said with more than a little relish. “You should give me a tour.” And a real damned barracks next time.

Michel froze. Vlora turned to face him, and could see him struggling to keep a lid on a torrent of emotions. “Ma’am,” he finally said, “do you remember yesterday, when I said that Blackhats only go there in force? It’s because they’ll skin us alive if we get caught down there on our own.”

Vlora wondered if he really believed that. She’d heard of slums in Adro where the police preferred to work in numbers, but they feared a robbery and a beating; nothing so savage as straight-up torture. She shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, and continued to walk.

She heard a string of curses behind her, then Michel said, “Wait a moment, ma’am.”

He disappeared into a nearby house and came back a moment later. His black jacket and hat were gone, replaced by a workman’s brown jacket, the elbows patched and repatched, and a matching flatcap. Even the rose medallion, which the Blackhats seemed to wear like shields, was no longer hanging around his neck. Perhaps he really did fear being skinned alive. “A changing house,” he explained. “It’s always good to have a spare set of clothes lying around when you’re a Blackhat near Greenfire Depths.”

Michel led her down several side streets until they reached a thoroughfare that descended by way of switchbacks down the side of the quarry wall. Within two switchbacks they were equal to the tops of most tenements, and after six Vlora was more than a little disconcerted that she could not see the sky without looking straight up. The ground soon leveled out, and her boots splashed in a filthy morass of sludge.

“Welcome to the Depths,” Michel said.

The air was damp, stifling, and dim. There were only glimpses of the sky, and most of the light was provided by well-placed mirrors redirecting the sun from the tops of the tenements. Michel noticed her examining one of the mirrors and said, “Courtesy of the Lady Chancellor, back before the Palo took over. It was a cheaper and safer way to light this place in the daytime.”

“It needs it,” Vlora said.

Michel pulled the brim of his flatcap forward. “We should keep moving,” he said.

Vlora pulled herself away from examining the distressing construction of the tenements, with walkways and curtains running between them, whole buildings propped up by jacks and beams, and noticed that almost everyone within sight was staring at them. No, not at them. At her. Unlike Michel, she was still wearing her hat and uniform. She wondered if these people knew who she was, and that she’d spent the last year out in the frontier fighting their cousins for the government.

Perhaps this expedition was as ill-advised as Michel suggested.

Any sense of a real thoroughfare disappeared within a hundred paces. She could barely see the sky now, and after they’d gone just a hundred more she had to admit to herself that she was hopelessly lost. There was no sense of direction in this place, no recognizable landmarks. She was as good as underground.

She also noticed the sudden silence. A few moments ago there had been children playing in the streets, vendors haggling with old women, pedestrians strolling along the corridors. Now there were scarcely half a dozen people within eyesight and all of them heading the opposite direction. She couldn’t help but feel the weight of watchful eyes between her shoulder blades. The silence seemed to make the stink worse, a noxious stench like rotten food and dead animals, and she now noticed the rats running every which way as they passed.

They took several twists and turns before Vlora said, “I think we’re being followed.”

“We’re definitely being followed,” Michel agreed. His mouth was a firm line, and they ducked down two more bends quickly. “It’s pretty common down here. I told you, the Palo are organized. They keep an eye out for strangers – anyone with a Kressian face that they don’t recognize. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re being watched by Mama Palo’s own spies right now.”

The sense of helplessness that overcame Vlora as she tried to figure out which direction they were going was disconcerting, to say the least. Her eyes darted between doorways and windows but there were too many crannies to keep an eye on. An ambush down here, undertaken by a capable leader, could slaughter an entire brigade.

Her brigade.

“I think we should go,” Vlora said.

“What do you think we’re doing?” Michel’s voice was on edge now, a little higher than usual, and before he’d finished the sentence they rounded one more bend to find the entrance to the switchbacks right in front of them. She thought she heard Michel give a quiet sigh, and then again once they’d reached the top of the switchbacks. She took a moment to catch her breath, looking back over the surreal slums below them.