The Emperor's blades

9

The shrine to Hull, Lord of the Darkness, patron god of all those who moved in the shadows, wasn’t a shrine at all, but a massive tenebral oak, gnarled black limbs stretching over a full quarter acre like arthritic fingers scratching at the sky. Hanging from every branch and twig-packed in so close that when Valyn first saw the tree, he took them for heavy black leaves-dangled bats, tens of thousands of bats, folded tight in their wings, waiting silently for night. When darkness fell, they would take to the air together, a wheeling, darting, silent swarm harrying the sky, leaving the branches bare as bones. Even in summer, the tenebral had no leaves-the bats were its leaves. When they returned to roost just before dawn, the blood dripping from their fangs would soak the heavy earth around the roots, feeding the tree. Unlike its brethren, the tenebral had no need of the sun.

Valyn had seen other tenebrals in the course of his training-they were rare, but grew scattered all over the continent of Eridroa. This tree, however, perching on a low hillside overlooking the Eyrie compound, was by far the largest he had ever come across. Down below, among the storage barns, bunkhouses, and training arenas, the Kettral had erected small shrines to several of the young gods: Heqet, God of Courage; Meshkent, Lord of Pain; even a tiny stone sanctuary dedicated to Kaveraa, in the hope that the Mistress of Fear might leave her worshippers untouched. It was here, however, at the foot of the ancient tenebral, that the Kettral worshipped most devoutly. Courage and pain were all well and good, but it was darkness that covered the soldiers as they winged in beneath their birds, darkness that cloaked them as they killed, and darkness that hung over their retreat like a cloak as they melted away into the night.

Before and after every mission, the soldiers would leave an offering. There were no coins or gemstones littered among the roots, no candles or expensive silks. The Kettral knew how the tree survived. Valyn had spent years watching them wind their way up the narrow trail ground into the hillside, had watched them as they knelt and drew their blades, watched as they dragged the steel across warm flesh, squeezing blood onto the hungry roots. Whether Hull knew, or cared, was anyone’s guess. The old gods were inscrutable.

When Valyn first arrived on the Islands, he had found the tree and the sodden ground beneath it unsettling, to say the least. Valyn’s line, the Malkeenian line, claimed descent from Intarra, and the Dawn Palace where he had passed his childhood was filled with light and air. Now, however, the dark, brooding tree suited his mood just fine. Though Manker’s had collapsed into the bay nearly a week earlier, he hadn’t been able to shake the image of Salia’s bloodied face from his mind. When he fell asleep, he found himself in the burning tavern all over again, heard her begging him not to leave her. When he woke, he expected to find her blood still spattered on his skin.

He was furious with Ha Lin, and felt foolish for his fury. She had made the right call in a difficult situation. As Hendran wrote, Your ideals die, or you do. If Valyn had tried to make the jump with Salia draped unconscious across his back, he would have ended skewered on one of the jagged pilings. But it should have been my decision to make, he thought, balling his hand into a fist. In addition to the basic instruction, each Kettral cadet trained for a specialty: sniper, demolitions, flier, leach. Someone in command had decided early on that Valyn might have the skills to actually lead a Wing; if he passed the Trial, he would find himself in command of his own soldiers, and command required decision.

Blood misted down from above. He ignored it. He hadn’t spoken with Lin since Manker’s, and he didn’t know what to say. Here, at least, in the gloomy shadow of the tenebral oak, he had time to think, to work through his feelings without saying or doing something that he could not take back. Except, as he gazed down the hill in the direction of the compound, he could see a slender shape moving up the track toward him.

Ha Lin stopped just outside the reach of the tree’s branches, glancing up at the quiescent bats with a look of disgust. Valyn had no doubt that when the time came, she would pay homage to the god like everyone else, but she had never overcome her revulsion of the place. It was one of the reasons Valyn had chosen it-he thought the dark limbs and quiet susurrations of the shifting bats might keep her away. No such luck.

Lin’s lips were pursed, and her eyes, normally so open and warm, were hooded as she looked at him. She must have come directly from a training rotation; mud coated her blacks while a small cut wept blood on her left cheek. Somehow, even battered and dirty, she managed to look poised, beautiful even. Which is part of the ’Shael-spawned problem, Valyn thought sourly to himself. He wouldn’t have had nearly so much trouble thinking what to say to Laith, or Gent, or even Talal.

“How long are you going to sulk?” Lin asked finally, raising an eyebrow.

Valyn gritted his teeth. “It was wrong to kill her.”

“Valyn,” Lin said, “right and wrong are luxuries.”

“They are necessities.”

“Maybe for other people. Not for us.”

“Especially for us,” Valyn insisted. “If we don’t have some sense of right and wrong, we’re no better than Skullsworn, killing for the sake of killing, murdering to please Ananshael.”

“We’re not Skullsworn,” Lin replied, “but we’re not knights of Heqet either. We don’t ride around on white steeds, waving idiotically heavy swords and delivering noble challenges to our foes. Or maybe you hadn’t noticed. We’re Kettral, Valyn. We kill people. If we have our way, we poison them, or we stab them in the back. Maybe we shoot them when they aren’t looking, and if at all possible, we do it at night. It might not be noble, but it’s necessary. It’s what we trained for.”

“Not serving girls,” he said stubbornly. “Not civilians.”

“Yes, serving girls. Yes, civilians. If we have to. If they get in the way of the mission.”

“There was no ’Kent-kissing mission. We were trying to get people out of that place alive.”

“Maybe that’s what you were doing, but I was trying to keep you alive,” she spat back, her eyes bright and angry. “The girl was deadweight. She was killing you. I did what I had to do.”

“There might have been another way.” He’d been over it a hundred times already. Maybe he could have forced his way out one of the other windows. Maybe he could have leapt to one of the adjacent buildings. It was academic now. Manker’s was gone, and Salia with it.

“Of course there might have been another way. And you might have been killed. It’s all about odds, Valyn. You know that as well as I do.” Lin sighed deeply and slumped, as though the anger had gone out of her in a rush, leaving her weak and unsteady. “I always thought it would happen in battle,” she said after a long pause. “In a fight at least.”

Valyn hesitated, suddenly wrong-footed. “Thought what would happen?”

Lin met his eyes. “Salia was my first. My first kill.”

On the Islands, most men and women celebrated their first kill the way civilians might celebrate an engagement or a birthday. As much as passing Hull’s Trial or flying a first mission, killing was a right of passage, a necessary step. Regardless of the training and the study, until you killed, you weren’t really Kettral. Lin was right, though. You didn’t expect your first to be an unconscious serving girl. You didn’t want that.

Valyn blew out a long, slow breath. In his anger and guilt, he hadn’t even thought about how Salia’s death might have affected his friend. Although he’d held the girl as she died, Lin had thrown the knife. She had accepted the burden, and not for her own sake, but to protect him. From some forgotten corner of his mind, his father’s words came back to him, firm and uncompromising: You and Kaden will both be leaders someday, and when you are, remember this: Leadership isn’t just about giving orders. A fool can give orders. A leader listens. He changes his mind. He acknowledges mistakes. Valyn gritted his teeth.

“Thank you,” he said. The words came out rougher than he had intended, but he said them.

Lin raised her eyes, her face guarded, as though she expected some sort of trap.

“You were right,” Valyn said, forcing the syllables out. “I was wrong.”

“Oh, for Ananshael’s sake, Valyn!” Lin groaned. “You are so unbelievably proud. I have no idea why I-” She cut herself off. “I didn’t come up here so that you could tell me I was right. I came because I’m worried.”

“Worried?”

“Manker’s,” she said, gesturing across the bay toward Hook. “It didn’t just fall down on its own.”

Valyn frowned. He’d been gnawing at the same idea, but couldn’t be sure if his misgivings were the result of paranoia or healthy concern.

“Buildings fall down,” he replied. “Especially old ones. Especially on Hook.”

“An Aedolian warns you about a conspiracy, and then, a week later, a building that’s stood for decades just happens to collapse barely a minute after you step outside?”

Valyn shrugged, trying to put down the disquiet festering inside him. “You squint hard enough, and everything starts to look suspicious.”

“Suspicion keeps people alive,” Lin insisted.

“Suspicion drives people insane,” Valyn countered. “If someone wanted me dead, there are more elegant ways to manage it than bringing down an entire building.”

“Are there?” Lin asked, eyebrows raised. “Seems pretty elegant to me. An accident-one more hovel on Hook falls over, killing a dozen people. Nothing too unusual. Nothing to suggest an attack on the imperial family. It’s sure to Hull more elegant than cutting your throat.”

Valyn grimaced. She was right. Again. He knew she was right, and yet, there were accidents to go around on the Islands. Just a week earlier, Lem Hellen had had his leg crushed beneath a huge boulder during a training rotation out on Qarn. If Valyn started looking over his shoulder at every turn, he’d never get a wink of sleep, never trust anyone.

“There’s just no way to know,” he said, staring out over the sound. Hook’s colorful riot of tenements and huts was clear across the narrow strip of water. “I could spend a week poking through the wreckage and still have no idea.”

“Maybe,” Lin began cautiously, “you’re not the one who should poke through the wreckage. You’ve been training to lead a Wing the past eight years, and I’ve been studying the fine art of the bow. Half a dozen of our brothers and sisters, however, have been learning to knock down bridges and blow up buildings.”

“Demolitions,” Valyn replied, nodding.

“One of them ought to be able to tell you if Manker’s was rigged.”

Valyn considered the idea. “It would mean tipping my hand. I’d have to let on I was suspicious.”

“Is that so bad? Might make whoever’s trying to kill you think twice.”

“I don’t want them to think twice,” Valyn said, rolling his eyes. “I want them to think once and, if at all possible, drunkenly.”

“Point is, it’s not likely to make anything worse.”

That seemed like the truth. Valyn stared down at the neat grid of buildings below-storehouses and mess hall, bunkrooms and command center. Which one of them would come down on him next? Which was harboring the traitor or traitors? He could wait, looking over his shoulder every other heartbeat, for the next attack, or he could do something. “Does seem like I’m at a pretty low ebb,” he admitted. “Who did you have in mind?”

“I’ll give you two guesses,” Lin replied with a smirk, “but you’re only going to need one.”

“Gwenna.” He sighed heavily. “Hull help us.”

Lin didn’t seem pleased by the prospect either, but before she could respond, a dark shadow passed overhead, silent and swift. Valyn looked up to find a kettral, wings spread wide, swooping in for a drop on the field below.

“Bird in,” Lin said, tracing the backflight over the island, toward the low bluffs to the northwest. “Looks like it’s coming from…”

“Annur,” Valyn concluded. “Fane’s back.”

* * *

The Kettral mess hall, a low, one-story building packed with benches and long wooden tables, was a far cry from Manker’s, or any of the Hook alehouses. For one thing, it didn’t serve ale-if you wanted a drink stiffer than black tea, you had to cross the sound. For another, there were no whores, no civilians of any kind, just Kettral, same as everywhere else on Qarsh-men and women loading up on hard tack and dried fruit before flying out on a mission, or shoveling down a bowl of hot stew after they returned. The slaves in the kitchen worked all day and all night as well-soldiers needed food at odd hours. Usually everyone was so intent on their meals that any conversation was low and intermittent. When Valyn and Lin burst through the door, however, the place might as well have been a tavern, and doing good business at that.

It seemed as though half of Qarsh was shoved into the hall, packed in so tight around the tables, Valyn wondered if he’d been the last one to notice the bird winging in from the north. People clustered in small knots-a couple of Wings here, a few cadets there-but everyone was talking all at the same time.

Somewhere in the press he lost Lin, but Valyn had eyes only for the man in the far corner of the room. Adaman Fane sat near the door to the kitchens. He looked more intent on tearing apart a side of beef than he did on talking, but Valyn could see that, in between bites, he was responding to the questions of the veterans seated around him. It was a hard group-Gird the Axe, Plenchen Zee, Werren of Raalte-and Valyn hesitated before shoving into the inner circle, impatient though he was.

“Hold on, Val,” someone said, catching his sleeve. “I wouldn’t break into that little chat unless you want a busted head.”

Valyn turned to find Laith, an easy smile on his face, gesturing back the way he had just come. The flier was a hand shorter than Valyn, and lean to go with it, but he had a loose, casual swagger and quick tongue that earned him a role in any conversation and made him seem larger than he really was. Most of the cadets on the Islands were a little cocky-you had to have a high opinion of yourself to think you could make a place for yourself among the most deadly women and men in the empire. Laith, despite the fact that he was a cadet just like Valyn, took self-confidence to a new level. He pushed his bird faster than some of the veteran fliers, executed maneuvers that made Valyn’s stomach twist just watching from the ground, and never failed to brag about it all when he was finished. He infuriated half the trainers and amused the other half, who insisted he’d be dead before he even reached the Trial. For all his bravado, however, he was cheerful and easygoing-more than could be said for some of the other cadets-and he and Valyn were on pleasant terms.

“Come on,” he said, catching Valyn around the shoulders to steer him away from the press. “We’ve got a table over in the corner.”

“Fane’s got news of my father.”

“And you’ve got a strong grip on the obvious,” Laith replied, “along with eight dozen other people here. The man’s been flying all night and the better part of a day. He’s not going to want to talk to you.”

“I don’t care what he wants…,” Valyn began, but then he saw Lin gesturing from across the room. She was at the table Laith had indicated, along with a few other cadets.

“Come on,” Laith said again, not unkindly. “We’ve been here over an hour. We’ll fill you in.”

The five of them crunched into the low benches, Laith and Ha Lin, Gent, Talal, and a quiet youth named Ferron, whom no one thought would pass the Trial. The unexpected arrival of Fane had scrubbed the weariness from Valyn’s mind, and he shouldered in among the group impatiently.

“So?” he asked, scanning the faces for some clue.

“Clergy,” Gent replied abruptly. “Some ’Kent-kissing priest scraping for a little more power.”

“Uinian the Fourth,” Laith added, making room for Valyn on the bench. “I doubt that any future priests, if there are any future priests, will be too eager to style themselves Uinian the Fifth.”

“Priest of what?” Valyn asked, shaking his head in disbelief. Killed in battle, he could have believed, or slain at the hand of a foreign assassin, but for Sanlitun to be murdered by some pasty prelate?

“Intarra,” Laith replied.

Valyn nodded dumbly. Not even one of the Skullsworn. “How?”

“The old-fashioned way,” Gent said. Then, miming the action, “Quick knife to the back.”

“Gent,” Talal interjected quietly, nodding over at Valyn.

“What?” Gent demanded. Then the realization set in. “Oh, I’m sorry, Val. As usual, I’m about as graceful as a bull’s swollen cock.”

“Considerably less so,” Laith said, clapping a hand on Valyn’s shoulder in sympathy. “The point is, looks like the whole thing was pretty simple. Overweening pride. Greed for power. The usual horrible day-to-day bullshit.”

Valyn exchanged a quick glance with Lin. One disgruntled priest with a knife didn’t sound much like a grand conspiracy, but then, the Church of Intarra was one of the largest in the empire. If Uinian was part of a larger plot, who knew where it might lead?

“How’d he get close enough?” Valyn asked. “My father had half a dozen Aedolians around him anytime he was outside his personal chambers.”

“Sounds like he picked the wrong half dozen,” Laith replied, spreading his hands.

“Mistakes do happen,” Lin added. “We heard something about your father maybe leaving his guard behind.”

Valyn tried to square the suggestion with what he remembered of his childhood, but the idea of his father abandoning his guard made less than no sense.

“Command still seems pretty stirred up,” Talal said, absently fingering one of the iron bracelets on his arm. “There’ve been Wings coming and going day and night since we learned about the murder. Maybe someone thinks there’s more to it.” It was just like the leach to be thoughtful, deliberate, reserved in his judgment. Leaches learned early to keep their own secrets close; they learned or they ended up dangling by the neck from a rope. Talal was no exception, and approached the world more warily than Laith or Gent.

“What more do you need?” Gent asked with a shrug. “Uinian will face trial and then he’ll die.”

“It’s like Hendran says,” Laith agreed, “‘Death is a great clarifier.’”

“And my sister?” Valyn asked. “She’s all right? Who’s running the empire now?”

“Slow down,” Laith replied. “Slow down. Adare’s fine. She’s been raised to the head of the Finance Ministry. Ran il Tornja was appointed regent.”

“And a good thing, too,” Gent added. “Can you imagine some bureaucrat trying to keep the military in order?”

Valyn shook his head. His father’s death had clarified nothing, and this further information about Uinian and his priesthood, a kenarang appointed to the regency, about impending trials, only muddied the matter.

All of a sudden the room seemed too small. The press of people, the noise, the stench of grilling meat and lard turned Valyn’s stomach and made his mind spin. The other cadets were just trying to help, just giving him the information he’d asked for, but there was something about the casual way they discussed his father’s death that made him want to hit someone.

“Thanks,” Valyn said, struggling up from his seat. “Thanks for the news. I’ve only got an hour to crash before second bell-I’d better make use of it.”

“You trying to starve yourself?” Gent demanded, shoving a bowl of clotted curds across the table.

“I’m not hungry,” he replied, shouldering his way toward the door.

He didn’t notice until he was outside and halfway to his barracks that Ha Lin had followed him. He wasn’t sure whether he was frustrated or glad.

“That must have been tough in there,” she said quietly, catching up in a few quick steps and falling in next to him. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Not anyone’s fault. Death is normal. Isn’t that what they’ve spent the last eight years teaching us? Ananshael comes for us all.”

“Death is normal,” she agreed. “Murder is not.”

Valyn forced himself to shrug. “Lots of ways to die-gangrene, old age, a knife in the back-it all lands you in the same place.”