Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

“Not sure, ma’am,” the driver said.

Vlora chewed on her bottom lip, reassuring herself that this was a coincidence. It had nothing to do with her or Taniel. It wasn’t a trap of some kind. Her nerves were just strung too tightly. “Where are we?”

“Eastern lip, ma’am. Right above the bay.”

More than two miles’ walk back to Loel’s Fort, and the heat of the afternoon was getting worse.

“I’ll see what’s going on,” Taniel said, getting out of the cab. Vlora got out after him, paying the driver before running to catch up.

“I’m heading back to my men,” she told him. “Olem will need help organizing our travel back to the Nine. You never really realize the logistics of moving a whole brigade until you’re actually in command.”

“Tamas loved that sort of stuff,” Taniel said wistfully. He tapped his cane on the cobbles, frowning up at the rooftops as they wound their way through the crowd. A stiff breeze came in off the ocean, nearly taking Vlora’s hat off. Taniel suddenly stopped and turned to her. “I’m not your enemy,” he said.

“And I’m not yours.” They stared at each other once again. They might not be enemies, Vlora thought to herself, but she couldn’t exactly call them friends.

“I’m glad. Does Olem know I’m still alive?”

“He does.”

“Tell him hello for me. Consult with him, if you’re willing. Reconsider my offer.”

Vlora bit her tongue. She knew that Olem would agree with whatever decision she wound up making. But as much as he hated ships and wouldn’t be looking forward to the voyage home, he had to be aching to see the Nine again. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Thank you,” Taniel said. He smiled to himself. “You know, sometimes I wish I had remained alive. That I’d just retired quietly and gone out into the world. That I could have stayed myself – I could have come back and visited, and Ka-poel and I could have taken dinner with you and Olem at a dockside club in Adro. I wish I could have lived a normal life.”

“I don’t think either of us would have been able to handle a normal life,” Vlora responded.

“No. Probably not. I…” Taniel trailed off.

They’d continued walking, albeit slowly, as they spoke, and the eastern edge of the Landfall Plateau had come into view. A crowd had gathered in the street, all of them pointing and talking excitedly, looking at something down in the docks below.

No, Vlora realized. Not the docks. Farther out, beyond the edge of the bay. She pushed her way to the front of the crowd, craning her neck to see. There was a ship out there, easily half a mile from the shore. It was immense, a ship of the line with three decks of guns on either side and a forecastle that would have rivaled a tenement in height. The gray sails were drawn, and even at this distance she could make out tiny figures scrambling around the deck.

“Why are they stopped so far out?” she asked.

“Look at the flag,” Taniel said flatly, stepping up to her side.

“What about it?” Vlora lifted her eyes, and it took a moment for the wind to catch the flag above the ship’s highest sail, unraveling to reveal a black background with a cluster of red stars arcing across the center. “Oh,” she whispered.

That flag did not belong to Adro or Kez or Brudania, or any of the countries of the Nine. It wasn’t the emblem of a Gurlish province or any colonial power on the world.

It was the flag of the Dynize Empire.

“Take powder,” Taniel said with a note of urgency.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Vlora removed a powder charge from her pocket, cutting one end with her thumbnail and snorting a little in each nostril. She rubbed her nose and returned the rest of the charge to her breast pocket. Within moments her senses had sharpened, and she was able to pick out the details of the individuals on board the ship as if they were a few feet away. Men and women scurried across the decks, preparing longboats for lowering. It was strange to see a ship entirely manned by people with the red hair and ashen freckles of the Palo, and she had to remind herself that they weren’t actually Fatrastan natives.

“What am I looking for?” she asked.

“The horizon.”

Vlora lifted her gaze, and what she saw took her breath away. Far out beyond the closest ship, miles and miles from shore where even the best looking glasses would have trouble spotting them at the edge of the horizon, she could see more ships. There were dozens of them, perhaps forty or more, and each was capped by a tiny black and red dot that could only be the Dynize flag.

“Since when do the Dynize leave their home country?” someone beside her asked.

Vlora wet her lips and turned to Taniel, speaking in a low voice. “Since when do the Dynize have a fleet?”

“They don’t,” Taniel said, dumbfounded. “They shouldn’t. This changes everything.”

Vlora was running in a moment, not even bothering to hail a cab as she sprinted down the street, ignoring the shouts that followed her as with powder-enhanced speed she blew past people. She had to get back to the Riflejacks and Olem.

Taniel was right. This changed everything.

Styke sat in one corner of Lady Flint’s office in Loel’s Fort, his borrowed knife in his lap, rocking on the back two legs of the chair, his face pointed at the ceiling and his eyes closed as he waited for Lady Flint to return from Mama Palo’s execution. Across from him Ibana paced restlessly, thumbs hooked through her belt loops, repeating the same phrase every five minutes or so.

“This is a terrible idea.”

“You mentioned that,” Styke answered.

“Well, I’m mentioning it again. Couldn’t you have just sent her a damned letter or something?”

Styke opened his eyes and kept them glued to the sagging plaster ceiling, listening to the chair beneath him creak in protest as he rocked himself gently with one foot. “I could have,” he said. “But I didn’t.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Ibana responded sarcastically.

Styke sucked in a mouthful of air, puffed out his cheeks, and slowly blew it back out. Ibana was right, of course. This was a terrible idea. Olem had told him before his fight with Fidelis Jes that he was no longer welcome here, and that the men had been ordered to arrest him on sight. The last thing he needed was for them to try exactly that and have this turn into a fight. He should have left Ibana with the other lancers. “Look,” he said, “if you want me back, if you want me to take command of the Mad Lancers, then I’m going to set a few things to rest first.”

Two things, to be precise. The first he’d taken care of not long after his conversation with Lindet by leaving a note for Tampo at the only address the lawyer had given him – a bank box on the western edge of the plateau. This was the second thing, and for some reason he’d decided it was far more important. He’d also, stupidly, decided to do it in person.

Ibana was about to respond, an argumentative look on her face, when Styke heard a commotion in the muster yard outside. They both froze, and Styke slowly lowered the front legs of his chair to the ground and got up, borrowed knife in hand.

“Where’s Olem!” Lady Flint’s voice demanded from somewhere outside.

Styke couldn’t hear the answer, or make out Flint’s barked order, but he could tell she was heading in his direction. He braced himself and gestured Ibana away from the door.

Lady Flint opened it a moment later, stepping inside while shouting over her shoulder, “Get everyone. Send a messenger to Fidelis Jes and Lindet telling them I want to see them.”