Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

Styke grimaced. He’d planned on telling her. Eventually. “I’d hoped you missed that.”

“Not a chance. Tell me what’s going on. All of it.”

So Styke did. He started with the parole hearing, told her about Tampo, then joining the Riflejacks. He told her about the dragonman, the Dynize, and the Palo. He talked until his throat was raw, and Ibana stood there unmoving through the whole thing. When he finished he looked around for his pants, only to find a new pair hanging by the washbasin.

“Is the girl yours?”

Styke froze, the pants around his ankles, one leg raised. “Celine?”

“Yeah. Her.”

“I suppose so. She hasn’t got anyone else.” Styke didn’t like the edge to Ibana’s voice. He finished pulling the pants on and buckled the belt.

“But you didn’t father her in the camps?”

“No. Her dad was a thief. Died mucking the marshes. Where is she?”

Ibana’s tone softened. “She’s downstairs playing with Gamble. He says she’s just a few years younger than his daughters would have been if they survived the war, the sap.”

Styke let out a soft sigh. The fact that, after all this, Celine was safe and close by was as comforting as waking up with a working hand. When he turned back Ibana had a strange half smile on her face. She uncrossed her arms and lifted her chin toward him. She seemed satisfied that Celine wasn’t his by blood, and the fact she cared was somehow comforting to Styke.

“That’s quite the story you told,” Ibana said. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m not sure.” Styke didn’t trust that smile. It meant Ibana already knew how this conversation was going to end. It was unnerving. “I’ve got two masters right now. Tampo and Lady Flint.”

“And do you owe either of them anything?”

“I owe Tampo my freedom. And I owe Lady Flint…” Styke frowned. He wasn’t sure what he owed Lady Flint. She’d given him a job – a purpose – and the fact that he felt a modicum of guilt over the false pretenses he’d used told him all he needed to know. “I like Lady Flint. I like Olem and the Riflejacks. They warned me that the Blackhats were coming for me.”

“You have obligations.”

“I have obligations,” Styke agreed. He was torn. He couldn’t go back to Lady Flint. He didn’t know how to contact Tampo and even if he did, was he any use to Tampo now that he was on the Blackhats’ shit list? His best bet was to disappear. He could take Celine and head north. Catch a ship to Gurla or the Nine and be beyond Fidelis Jes’s reach within a few weeks. Vanishing into thin air would be its own sort of vengeance. Jes would lie awake at night, wondering when the knife would come out of the dark, while Styke slept peacefully half a world away.

“You didn’t mention your other obligations.”

Styke raised his eyebrows. “You?”

“You bet your ass me. And everyone else.”

“What do you mean?”

Ibana advanced into the room. “Have you forgotten the men and women downstairs? The Blackhats attacked your whole officer corps – everyone still alive, that is. They burned businesses, destroyed homes, beat some of our friends within an inch of their lives.”

Styke’s chest tightened and he looked away. “I… I’ve got nothing to offer them.”

“Don’t look away from me. I will break your nose, and then I’ll go to work on your fingers. Those people would die for you, and all you can do is avert your eyes out of self-pity? You’ll give them something, even if it’s one last ride into glory and death. You’re goddamned Mad Ben Styke.”

“A ride?” Styke asked. “What would we ride against? There is no great empire battering down our doors this time.”

“The Blackhats,” Ibana suggested.

“The Blackhats,” Styke said, nodding. He held up his hand, suddenly caught on his own words. He repeated his last sentence under his breath. “No great empire…” He looked Ibana in the eye. “The Dynize. Something is going on with the Dynize. I never found out what, but with dragonmen in the city they have to be planning something.”

“Dragonmen.” Ibana snorted. “Then we have two groups to ride against.”

Styke’s heart leapt at the idea. The Mad Lancers together again, prepared to fight through the teeth of whatever the world could throw at them. A week ago – pit, an hour ago – it would have seemed a silly thought, but now here it was. “Seems like a lot of enemies.”

“Never bothered us before.”

“What happened to our armor?” Styke asked. “Last I heard, Lindet was going to have it destroyed.”

“Last I heard, too,” Ibana said with a scowl.

“Enchanted armor is priceless. She wouldn’t destroy it.”

“It’s Lindet.”

Styke nodded. That was all Ibana needed to stay. He reached for his knife, his hand coming up empty, and remembered the sound of it clattering away across the cobbles after Jes’s victory. Ibana’s eyes followed the gesture, and Styke said quickly, “I’ll get it back.” He walked toward the door, then thought better of it, opening the window and looking down into the street. He wasn’t ready to face his old officer corps. Not yet. He began to climb through the window.

“What are you doing?” Ibana demanded.

“Keep everyone here,” he said. “If you have to move to avoid the Blackhats, leave word for me at Grandma Sender’s.”

“Where are you going?”

Styke remembered what Jes had whispered just before having him carted off. I can’t kill you. She won’t allow it. “It’s long past time I had a talk with the one who holds Fidelis Jes’s leash.”

Michel jogged up the steps to the Millinery courtyard, Gold Rose dangling from a chain around his neck, tapping gently against his chest. He shaded his face from the afternoon sun, realizing he’d left his hat on the desk of his new office. It was not, he decided, an auspicious start to his new command.

The word “command” felt foreign – so military and public, far from what he was used to – but after spending all night and most of the morning being briefed about his new responsibilities as a Gold Rose, he felt it was the most fitting word to use. Silver Roses were, technically, just one rank under a Gold Rose. But there were a lot of Silver Roses, and he’d always remained in the shadows, working alone, only taking advantage of his rank when he needed a couple of bodyguards or someone roughed up.

A few days ago the idea of bossing around a few dozen Iron and Bronze Roses had been a novel one, though ill-fitting. Now he was expected to take charge of more than six hundred Roses of all ranks and conduct a search for Benjamin Styke and a whole company of angry veterans.

“How hard will it be to find three hundred or so retired cavalry?” he asked himself.

“I don’t know,” he responded sarcastically. “How about you wander into the streets and ask around for the lancer unit that put the entire Kez army on edge?”

“That was ten years ago. They’re all washed up.”

“Tell that to the guards at the labor camp they set fire to last night.”

Michel rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t going to be alone in the search. Oh, definitely not. More than ten thousand Blackhats and twice that many in city police were currently combing the streets. He wondered how the pit this had been his first assignment, before remembering the wild look in Jes’s eye when he demanded Styke’s head. Every single Gold Rose – and everyone under them – had been told to look for Styke.

He wondered what his next assignment would be once Styke had been found and put down. His only real expertise was spycraft. Maybe Jes would allow him to organize the Blackhats’ spies and let him set up a real training program. He’d daydreamed a hundred times what kind of changes he’d make if he were in charge, and now that looked like a real possibility.