Sworn in Steel

Chapter Thirty-five

The eastern horizon was showing hints of purple when I walked out Ivory’s front door. An hour to sunup, maybe a hair more. Degan had best not dawdle.

I dragged the guard’s body into the house-he was heavy-and closed the door. A few handfuls of sandy soil kicked across the boards didn’t exactly cover up the trail of blood he’d left behind, but they kept it from being glaringly obvious.

I stayed off the paths and tried to act normal. A messenger on a mission; a functionary on an errand; a lover coming back from a late-night rendezvous with his mistress-anything other than what I was: a thief leaving his best friend and a dead body behind in the night.

There were a handful of servants and guards about, but their lanterns made them easy to avoid. Still, it wasn’t until I came to the gate and found the dogs gnawing on the remains of the guards that I let myself breathe easier. That they were here meant no one had discovered the breach yet. We still had a chance, albeit a shrinking one.

The hounds had done their work well: The gate was a bloody mess, with bits of flesh and bone scattered across the paving stones. I’d had vague notions of trying to hide the bodies on my way out-maybe move them into the guardhouse, or at least deeper into the shadows-but between the puddles of gore and the bloody paw prints, not to mention the sullen glares of the feasting hounds, I knew it was hopeless. Damn Wolf for leaving the bodies out in the open in the first place, let alone keeping the gate open.

I skirted the hounds, creaked open the gate slightly, and slipped out into the piazza. Compared to the charnel house behind me, it smelled almost fresh out here. Almost.

I resheathed my blade and drew out the patronage token from around my neck. That was when I realized I had a problem, or rather, another problem. What had been a bright brass lozenge only hours ago was now a lump of blue-green verdigris-a glowing lump of verdigris.

Clearly, my patronage had been revoked.

It’s not that I hadn’t been expecting it-the events at the play had all but guaranteed it-I just hadn’t realized the cancellation would be quite so. . visible. Then again, this was Djan.

I held the lozenge up against the night. The light coming off it wasn’t a radiant glare, but it was still bright enough to mark me, noticeable enough to make me an easy target in the dark, or even in a crowd. Enough to keep me off the main routes, which was exactly where I needed to be to make haste.

Hell.

I dropped the token down a drainage grate and headed for the nearest side street. As expected, it ran like a snake, twisting and turning until I wasn’t sure which way I was headed. I ignored the looks I collected from shadowed doorways and windows, pretended not to be bothered by the whispers that ran in my wake. I moved quickly, but without haste, keeping my chest from easy view as much as possible to hide my lack of brass.

A stairway took me up to another street, which quickly turned into an arched alleyway. That in turn led to a small walkway that ran over the first street I’d come down. I paused, noting the reassuring lack of lurking shadows, then made the short leap onto a nearby roof. A dog woofed in the rooms below me, but I was on to the next building before the owner had time to yell at the beast. It ignored him and kept barking.

I smiled grimly as I left the noise in my wake. If the hounds in the piazza beyond the Dog Gate had been anything like the one behind me, there was no way Degan and I could have gotten in to find Ivory, let alone out again. For that matter, Wolf would have had a harder time of it as well. Not that he’d seemed to care: Leaving a pile of dead men and an open gate wasn’t exactly the height of subtlety.

I hopped a low wall and wove my way among a jungle of empty laundry lines. Ahead, I could see a gap coming up, indicating a broader street to cross. I looked left and right, spied what appeared to be a narrowing of the way a block or so on, and adjusted my course.

I wondered briefly how the meeting between Wolf and Ivory had played out. Had they begun with talking, or was it steel and blood from the start? I could see Wolf wanting to take his time, to taunt his former brother, maybe even offer Ivory a way out, all the while knowing it would come to blows. That seemed to be Wolf’s style: He liked to show how clever he was, to let the mark know just how much he’d been played. Angels knew he’d enjoyed it enough with me. I couldn’t seem him not pausing to twist the knife when it came to confronting Ivory-the temptation would have been too great to miss.

The rattle of stone on stone to my right brought me up short and put me in a crouch. I hadn’t seen anyone else up here so far, but that didn’t mean I was alone. A curse followed the rattle, and after a moment, a figure pulled herself up onto an adjacent building. She paused to dust her hands against her robes and scan her surroundings; then she was off, crossing the roofs at an easy lope.

I waited until she was out of sight and then continued on, my own pace frustratingly less certain by comparison.

My guess, if I had to make one, was that Ivory hadn’t stood for any of Wolf’s baiting. He was too practiced at politics, had lived too long with an eye over his shoulder, to fall for the Azaari’s bluff and bluster. I could almost hear the old degan telling Wolf to get on with it as he took his long sword off the wall; could practically see the glint in his eye as they crossed steel. As for how he handled himself once he’d lost, well, I didn’t have any doubt that the old degan had told Wolf to go fuck himself when it came to the Order’s laws.

I smiled at the thought. That would have been something to see: Wolf coming up short, his plans brought to an abrupt halt by one man’s defiance. To watch as he realized there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make Ivory give him the laws.

Yeah, I would have paid for a seat to that performance.

I came to the edge of a gently sloping roof. It was a short jump down to an adjacent one, followed by what looked like a nice long run over closely set buildings. In the distance, I could make out the gray-black line of the wall that separated the second ring of the city from the third. Fowler would be in the shadow of that wall, in a basement tavern we’d picked as our Black Ken, waiting for me. From there, it would be a small matter of putting the proper bribes in the proper hands and joining the traffic leaving the Old City. True, the turned tokens might make things more expensive, but we’d been prepared for that possibility and laid down contingencies. Guards could always go blind for enough money.

No, the tricky part wouldn’t be getting out; it would be catching Wolf and stopping him. I didn’t relish trying to track him through the wilds, but at least we knew where he was headed. And besides, if worse came to worst, we could simply put on the miles and try to beat him to Ildrecca. After all, it wasn’t as if we didn’t know what he was planning. We had the laws; he had the sword: It wasn’t as if his options were limitless.

I adjusted my footing, eyed the drop to the next roof, and. . stood up.

No.

It didn’t make sense. The path was too straight, too predictable. Too easy to see it laid out before me.

I looked over my shoulder, back toward the padishah’s estate and the Dog Gate and the guards lying on the stones. Back to the papers on the floor and Ivory dying in his study. Back to Wolf’s failure.

None of it made sense.

Why leave Ivory alive? If Wolf had shown anything, it was that he did everything for a reason. From killing Crook Eye to manipulating Nijjan to putting me on Degan’s trail, every move had been made with one goal in mind: to get his hands on Ivory’s sword and the Order’s laws. As plans went, it was beautiful-he hadn’t wasted a single motion, hadn’t missed a single step. Every action, every conversation, had been a setup for the next phase, a prelude to the next step in the dance.

It was the kind of execution any Gray Prince would have been proud to call his own.

Had Wolf thought the old degan would bleed to death before anyone got to him? Or had he simply wanted to make sure that Ivory died a slow, lingering death-a kind of grim payback over their falling-out so many years before? Angels knew Wolf was vicious enough to do that.

But then why leave the guards lying out in the open? I didn’t know whether he’d dusted them coming or going, but either way, Wolf must have known that even if the padishah’s men didn’t find them, Degan and I would. And that if we did, we’d. .

Oh. Of course.

Shit.

I turned and began sprinting back the way I’d come.

Fool! We’d been meant to find them. And not just the guards-he’d wanted us to find Ivory, too. Alive. So we could talk to him. Comfort him.

Talk the dying degan into telling us where the laws were hidden.

Bastard.

Wolf had to be back there, had to be somewhere in or above the piazza, watching the Dog Gate even now, waiting for Degan to step through the gate. Just because I hadn’t seen him didn’t mean he wasn’t hiding, wasn’t waiting to spring once we were off the grounds and away from despotic interruptions. He’d gotten into my rooms under Fowler’s nose: If anyone could place himself without being seen, even by my night vision, it was him.

And why let me go? Why let me stroll away from the ground unmolested? Because he was after bigger fish. Wolf wanted the Order’s laws, and he knew that if anyone was going to have them, it would be Degan.

And that he’d have to kill him for them.

I flew back the way I’d come, scrambling and leaping where before I’d moved with a more cautious pace. The dog barked again, but this time when its owner shouted, it was because of the tiles I sent crashing to the street as I jumped down off his roof.

I ran back along the covered alley and practically tumbled down to the street in my haste. Amber-limned shapes drew back as I rushed past, shouting curses in my wake. I didn’t care: didn’t care about gathering attention, didn’t care about my missing token, didn’t care that I might be drawing ready blades after me. All I cared about was getting back to the damn gate before Degan stepped into whatever Wolf had planned for him.

I raced around the final turn and jerked to a halt, my feet skidding on the dusty stones beneath me. A lone figure stood where the street opened onto the piazza. The figure had a drawn sword in his hand and a smile on his face.

He was a degan, all right-just not the right one.

“I was wondering if you’d put the pieces together,” said Wolf. He was dressed in the Djanese style, with loose pants and a short tunic, all under a flowing burnoose, all spattered in blood.

“It wasn’t that hard,” I lied.

Wolf raised a dubious eyebrow. “Oh?”

“No,” I said. Talk. Buy time. Let Degan walk out the gate and hear you, find you. Maybe take Wolf from behind. “Remember what I used to do, why you brought me. I poke at things until they make sense, collect pieces until I can see the picture through the puzzle.” I rested an easy hand on my sword. Wolf didn’t react. “You broke your pattern.”

“My pattern?”

“You left Ivory alive. That isn’t like you.”

“Ah. That.” Wolf gestured at the wall beside him. There was a long sword leaning up against it. Ivory’s long sword. “Perhaps I was feeling merciful? He was a friend once upon a time, after all.”

“Friends don’t cut out friend’s tongues.”

“You don’t know some of the people I’ve called friend.”

“Nor does a smart killer leave a pile of corpses to advertise his comings and goings.”

“And if I said I was in a hurry?”

“I’d say you’d stop to cover your tracks on the way out of a burning house.”

Wolf rested his saber’s tip-his own blade, I guessed, given the raised steel chasing on the guard-on the ground and regarded me. “Yes,” he said. “Very clever. I was right to pick you.”

“And I was wrong to come.”

“I gave you no other choice.”

“There’s always another choice.”

“You mean stay in Ildrecca?” Wolf snorted. “You wouldn’t have survived, not once I set the other Gray Princes against you.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But I could have tried. I could have at least stuck around and backed my own organization, instead of walking away.” Could have put something of myself on the line, rather than coming down here and putting everyone else on the line for me. For what I thought a Gray Prince could be.

“You could have,” said Wolf, “but that’s not your nature. You’ve worked alone too long to let others claim you. You’re like a wolf who tries to run with a pack of hounds: As good as it may feel, you know you’re meant for better things-broader fields, wider skies.” He lifted his sword and let the spine of the blade rest against his shoulder. “Consider yourself fortunate to have figured it out now. It took me three lifetimes to realize an Oath isn’t a cause, that a brotherhood isn’t a tribe. For the others, it may be enough, but for me?” He shook his head. “I’m Azaari: I’m not meant to gather up promises and trade them for my honor. I gave my word to serve a purpose and for action, not to sit and wait and count.”

“Then why not leave the Order?”

“An Azaari doesn’t break his word.”

I couldn’t help it: I laughed.

Wolf took an ominous step forward. “You mock me?” he said. “Even now? Knowing who I am and what I can do?”

“I mock you,” I said, ignoring the hole forming in my stomach, “precisely because I know who you are and what you can do. Sworn brothers dead at your hand? The founder of your Order dusted so you could steal his sword? That’s not keeping your word, not even close.”

Wolf straightened to his full height and glared down at me. “You know nothing.” He picked up Ivory’s sword with his left hand and began to turn away.

“I know plenty,” I said to his back. “Why else carve your way to Ivory’s door, if not to find out how to break free of the Order? Why go to all this trouble, unless you plan to call the emperor to heel and force him to release you from your Oath?”

That stopped him. “What do you say?”

“Markino,” I said. “The emperor, and his other two incarnations, all indebted to the Order of the Degans. All bound by the Oath sworn on Ivory’s sword when you founded your gang.”

Wolf looked back over his shoulder. “Bronze told you this?”

“No, the emperor mentioned it over drinks before I left Ildrecca.”

A thoughtful silence, then, “My sword brother must love you indeed, to share something the Order’s kept secret for so long.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I didn’t.

“You’re right that I came for the sword,” he said. “But it’s not what you think. I’ve no desire to be severed from my Oath. What I told you before is true: I wish to save the Order. But unlike Bronze and most of the others, I’m not deluded enough to think we can fix our problems with talk or laws. Only action can save us now.”

“And what kind of action would that be?” I said. “Littering the streets with more bodies? Forcing the emperor to absolve you of all your sins? Or are you planning to put the question in Markino’s hands? To force him to pick between having the Order serve him or the empire? Because if you are, I can tell you which way he’ll jump, no guessing necessary.” Anyone capable of creating a religion for the sole purpose of ensuring his perpetual rule wasn’t about to let a tool like the degans slip through his fingers.

“You think me a fool?” said Wolf. “Of course I know what he’d choose: He’d say we were his, and the Order would be shattered for good. The fractures among us have grown too deep to be solved by a simple proclamation, even from the emperor. To declare for one interpretation is to drive the adherents of the other away.

“No, the only reason the Order has remained whole this long is that we haven’t sought out a resolution, haven’t given one another cause to back our views with steel. We’ve been careful to avoid repeating Ivory’s sins. But now, with Iron and Silver and Ivory dead? With degan blood on degan blades? It’s only a matter of time before someone draws in anger, or pride, or vengeance, and the Order collapses.”

“But you helped cause that,” I said. “You killed two to Degan’s one, for Angels’ sake!”

“Yes.”

“You knew what would happen.”

“Yes.”

“Then why?”

Wolf regarded me for a moment, then looked up at the sky. It had gone from black to charcoal around us on the street, with the stars fading overhead. His eyes creased with the hint of a smile.

“You’re trying to distract me,” he said. “To give Bronze time to get away, or come upon me unawares. Very good. Useless, but very good.” He turned and gestured toward the square. “Come, let’s await my brother together.”

I didn’t budge.

What the hell was I missing? If the Order of the Degans was beyond repair as Wolf said, then why hasten its collapse? Why push them over the edge and destroy the truce they’d been holding for centuries? Even if he did get his hands on Ivory’s laws, the odds of him being able to fix the Order once its members started killing one another seemed to rest somewhere between slim and none. If they-

No. Wait. Not fix. Wolf hadn’t said “fix,” he’d said “re-forge.”

I looked up to find Wolf staring at me. Waiting.

“You want the members of the Order to clear steel,” I said. “To start fighting and killing one another.” To see that the Order was doomed, to see that there was no compromise. To see there was no hope. “You want to break the degans.”

“Sometimes to repair something, you must break it first,” said Wolf. “To forge something anew, you have to tear it asunder. My Order can’t be saved as it stands, but if it were to be built again, from the ground up? Then. Then it would be saved.”

“Betrayed isn’t saved,” said a voice behind Wolf. “Betrayed is just betrayed. Calling it anything else is a weak man’s excuse.”

Wolf spun about, his sword snapping to guard, while I slipped to the side and looked past him.

To see Degan standing in the square.