The Emperor's blades

45

Valyn had seen some forbidding terrain during the course of his training-the icy Romsdal peaks south of Freeport, the blistering sands of the Seghir Desert, Hannan jungles north of the Waist-but nothing so vast and daunting as the Bone Mountains. The peaks were aptly named: white shards of granite stabbed into the clouds like the bones of the earth itself, shattered and thrust up through the thin soil. Where the white of the rock ended, the white of snow and ice began, glaciers and seracs, sharp cornices edging the highest ridgelines, bowls of dirty snow leaking into frothing white rivers. They went on forever, these peaks, rank after serrated rank, etching the frigid blue sky.

It had taken them four days, stopping only an hour at a time to rest the bird, to reach the southern foothills. Aside from the fatigue, which was standard Kettral fare, the flight was easier than anything they’d done in training. If Valyn could have forgotten what precipitated the journey, forgotten what lurked ahead, it could have been a pleasant training exercise in a remote corner of the world. Except it wasn’t an exercise. After what they’d done, there would be no more exercises.

Traitors. That’s what they were now. That’s what they’d been since the moment they raided the armory and loosed Suant’ra from the roost. Valyn had been shocked at his Wing’s willingness to follow him north into lawlessness and disgrace. After all, if they’d remained on Qarsh, if they’d obeyed Shaleel’s orders and submitted themselves meekly to Kettral justice, the chances were good that they could have exonerated Annick. At the very least, the other four members could have cleared their names and, after finding a new sniper, gotten on with their duties.

On the other hand, meek and obedient were not the first words he would have chosen to describe his Wing. He realized with a grim smile that the same stubbornness that made them question his authority day in and day out had probably caused them to kick back against the injustice of Shaleel’s inquest. The Flea’s words came back to him, calm and confident: Thought they’d make a good Wing.

Only, they were the Flea’s enemies now. That was a sobering thought, one that scrubbed the smile right off Valyn’s face. In the history of the Eyrie, only two Wings had ever turned their coats-all cadets learned the stories-and they were both hunted ruthlessly into the ground. The commander of the Silent Stoop ended up slitting his own throat, while the Wing leader of Darkness was captured, tortured, then executed on the Qarsh muster grounds. Even as Valyn and his Wing flew north in pursuit of Yurl, others would be following, veterans, professionals. Maybe Fane. Maybe the Flea. It didn’t much matter. If any of them caught up to Valyn before he reached Kaden, the fight was likely to be quick and horribly one-sided.

Almost there, Valyn reminded himself, scanning the peaks to the north. Almost to Ashk’lan, wherever that is.

The Eyrie had the most comprehensive maps in Annur, maps detailed enough to show the alleys and sewers of a dozen cities on two different continents. Unfortunately, there was no reason to chart a sprawling mountain range at the northeastern perimeter of the empire. Aside from a few mining camps and a smattering of hardy goat hearders, the Bones were too high for settlement. In terms of military strategy, they might as well have been an impregnable wall or a vast ocean-an army wouldn’t make it through the lowest of the passes, and from what Valyn could see from the bird’s back, even well-equipped men on foot would have trouble crossing between the highest peaks. The range was far too wide and rugged for anyone-Annurians, Antherans, Urghul-to think about crossing, and so, aside from a few impressionistic scratches on the parchment and a blotch indicating the approximate position of Ashk’lan, he didn’t have much to go on when it came to finding his brother.

As Suant’ra approached the peaks, Laith brought her down to within a few hundred paces of the jagged summits, just below the building cumulus clouds, into the systematic flight plan they’d agreed upon at the last stop. He’d climb a thermal in a low, lazy spiral to gain height, sparing ’Ra the effort, circle a few times to scout the mountains below, then glide down the far side in a rush of frigid wind that numbed the fingers and threatened to rip Valyn off the bird’s talons.

The land comprised a maze of defiles, ravines, box canyons, and frothing white rivers as bleak and desolate as anything he’d seen. They quartered it for the better part of the morning, sketching out the standard grid search pattern one painstaking square at a time, finding nothing larger than a fairly impressive crag cat. According to Kaden’s few letters, Ashk’lan wasn’t much of a compound-no more than a few stone buildings nestled against the cliffs-and Valyn was starting to worry they’d fly right over it without noticing. It’s just one ’Kent-kissing stone piled on another down there. Some of the piles of scree and rubble looked so much like dilapidated buildings that he had no trouble believing he might mistake an actual building for a rock slide. His eyes stung from the strain of scanning the ground below, but he refused to look away.

Gwenna was sharing a talon with him, her bright hair whipping in her face as she studied the ground below. After a while she leaned over to shout in his ear. “How high up the peaks?”

Valyn shook his head.

“How many buildings?”

He shook his head again, and Gwenna rolled her eyes.

For the hundredth time, he found himself wishing his brother had written in more depth about his life with the Shin. There had been letters-brief notes arriving via ship from Annur, sometimes years out of date-but the little “training” Kaden described sounded as bizarre as it was pointless. Evidently, the monks spent their days crafting pots or painting or just sitting around, admiring the mountains. As his eyes flickered over another rock-strewn valley, Valyn realized that, for all his anxiety, he didn’t really know his brother anymore. They had been constant childhood companions, but as their father used to say, different soil yielded different fruit, and it was hard to think of any soil more different from the Qirins than these hard, unforgiving peaks. Kaden the boy had been quick to laugh, eager to explore, but Kaden the boy was nearly a decade gone. For all Valyn knew, he could have thrown away his training, maybe even his life, in order to rescue an imbecile or a tyrant.

Gwenna’s elbow jarred him from his thoughts. Dusk was gathering, the sun sagging toward the western steppe, but his demolitions master was pointing off to the northeast at what looked like one more notch in another file of peaks. Valyn couldn’t make out much of anything at that distance, certainly not the indistinct hue of stone huts against a stone background, but then, just as he was about to look away, a bright flash caught his eye. Setting sun on steel, he realized, then tugged a quick code on the signal straps leading to the flier’s perch above.

Laith pulled the bird up above the highest peaks, above the low, scudding clouds-so high, the thin air scraped at Valyn’s lungs, and he thought his fingers might freeze to the rigging loops on ’Ra’s talons. Kettral had no protocol for fighting other Kettral, but Valyn’s Wing had discussed this ahead of time. Yurl would be flying low, scanning the ground just as they had been. Valyn calculated the angles. They were south of the flash and quite a few miles to the west-it was possible that the other Wing had glimpsed a similar reflection of light, but it didn’t seem likely, especially if they were focused on the terrain below.

Men are like deer, Hendran wrote. They never look up.

Laith was urging the bird higher and higher still, until they soared through the darkening air thousands of paces higher than the highest mountains. If he was able to bring ’Ra down from above, it seemed possible to destroy Yurl’s entire Wing with one of Gwenna’s arrow-mounted starshatters-Annick had only to bury the thing in the bird’s tailfeathers and let the wick burn out. He glanced over at the sniper and saw that she’d already nocked an arrow to the string of her bow, leaning far out in her harness over the edge of the talon, searching the sky below for her quarry.

There’s even a chance that we got here first, Valyn realized, hope rising within him. The thing Gwenna saw could have been Ashk’lan itself, some monk returning from the fields with a hoe slung over his shoulder.

As they drew closer to the flashing light, however, Valyn realized that whatever they were looking at, it wasn’t Ashk’lan. The light seemed to have come from a saddle in the distant ridgeline. There were no buildings, not even small ones. No one would build that high, not even these ’Shael-spawned monks. You’d have to spend all your time hauling water. But then, what was it Gwenna had seen? His pulse quickened as they passed overhead.

There were troops, he realized, maybe a dozen of them, scurrying over what seemed to be a makeshift camp. Yurl, he thought at first. Only Yurl didn’t command nearly as many men. Did Shaleel send more than one Wing?

Gwenna was gesturing vigorously, and he waved her off before she felt the need to drive that elbow into his ribs once more.

“I see them!”

Now that he had something specific to focus on, he fished the long lens out of his pack and trained it on the group. The figures, antlike to the natural eye, leapt into startling detail and precision, the rising sun on their armor sharp enough to touch. Aedolians, he realized with a fierce smile. Sanlitun must have dispatched two groups when he learned of the plot. The ones who had come to rescue Valyn had been slaughtered on their ship before they arrived, but it looked as though the contingent to protect Kaden had won through. Valyn had no idea what in Ae’s name was going on down there, no idea where Ashk’lan was, where Kaden was, but one thing was clear-he wouldn’t be alone in his fight against Yurl’s Wing. The delegation was sure to know the location of Ashk’lan-it was probably quite close by. Valyn and his Wing could fly ahead, secure Kaden, and wait for the guardsmen to arrive.

Then he caught sight of the bird-Yurl’s bird. The creature had settled down to roost in a small alpine meadow a quarter mile from the main body of men.

“That ’Kent-kissing bastard’s here already!” Gwenna shouted into his ear, pointing.

Valyn nodded grimly.

Yurl must have spotted the Aedolians from the air, or they spotted him. Either way, he would have thought fast enough to realize the game was up, and come in for an easy landing. After all, the Aedolians slaughtered on the boat to Qarsh all those months ago hadn’t been known exactly who was behind the plot. These were likely no better informed. They probably thought Yurl was flying a lawful mission from the Eyrie, probably thought the son of a whore was there to help. The youth could have fed them any one of a number of plausible lies, could even now be helping to arrange a “rescue,” one that would end, undoubtedly, in a tragic accident and Kaden’s death.

Except, of course, that Yurl believed Valyn’s Wing was back on the Islands. As Hendran had written: There’s no blade as keen as surprise.

The saddle stretched between two jagged peaks, offering a passage between them and a momentary respite from the unrelenting steepness of the surrounding terrain. Deep banks of snow piled in the shadows of the most jagged escarpments, but the center of the broad notch was clear. There were even a few patches of stunted grass thrusting up between the rocks. To the east, the ground fell off abruptly-so abruptly, Valyn wondered if it was possible to descend in that direction at all-but westward, the declivity was more gradual, and a quarter mile distant, the land leveled off again for a hundred paces. There, out of the worst of the wind, the grass grew more evenly, and it was there that Yurl had tethered his bird.

The Aedolians had taken up a rough defensive position in the pass, groups of three marking out the perimeter of an uneven square. A few of the men clustered at the center of the pass hunched over a cook fire, although where they found the wood to burn, Valyn couldn’t say. Others were erecting a handful of low canvas tents, tucking them behind shoulders of rock or up small ravines-anywhere to get out of the wind. It was a messy camp, but the Aedolians couldn’t have been expecting an attack out here in the middle of the wilds, and even if a foe did materialize, the position, sloping away as it did on either side, was nearly impregnable. The men wouldn’t even need weapons; they could just trundle a few of those medium-sized boulders down the escarpment and be done with it.

Yurl, likewise, had taken minimal precautions. It took Valyn a moment to pick out the Wing leader out from among armed men, but once he spotted him, there was no mistaking that yellow hair whipping in the mountain wind. Even the way he stood was arrogant. Balendin had joined him at the center of the camp. The leach had been forced to leave his dogs behind on Qarsh, but that hawk perched on his shoulder. Not his well, though, Valyn reminded himself. Just a bird.

The leach and the Wing leader were locked in coversation with a group of Aedolians. Yurl was making broad, expansive gestures with both hands while Balendin stood stock-still at his side. Valyn wondered what kind of lies the bastard was spinning. Anna was down by the bird, and Remmel Star and Hern Emmandrake had taken up positions on opposite sides of the pass. They looked a little more vigilant than their Aedolian counterparts. Emmandrake even had an arrow notched to the string of his bow. The youth wasn’t as good as Annick, but he could hit his targets. None of it mattered. They’re looking into the valleys. Every single one of the ’Shael-spawned sons of whores is looking down.

Valyn grinned savagely, then looked over at Gwenna.

“It’s time to settle some scores.”

* * *

Laith landed the bird in a flurry of wings and wind, and Valyn rolled up from his dismount to find himself facing a stern Aedolian in nearly full armor. It took him a moment to place the man. He knew the face, but it had aged, of course, hardened.… Micijah Ut, he realized, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Better and better. As a small child, he had always admired the commander of the Dark Guard, and Ut, for his part, had been kind to Valyn in return. Valyn stood up a little straighter, aware that the Aedolian was seeing him as a man now for the first time.

“Commander Ut,” he said, stepping forward and extending a hand.

Instead of accepting his greeting, the huge Aedolian took a step backward, preserving the distance between them while he drew a massive broadblade from the sheath across his back. If he was shocked to find Valyn here, a continent and a half away from either Annur or the Qirins, he didn’t show it. Nor did he seem pleased.

“No closer, Malkeenian. Keep your hands in front of you, and tell your people to stand down.”

Valyn frowned. He’d known that Yurl would see them coming in the final seconds-there wasn’t much avoiding that. He’d even expected the other Wing commander to have sown a few desperate lies. He had not, however, expected those lies to bear fruit so quickly. Laith, who had started to dismount from the bird, squinted warily, then swung back into his harness. The Aedolians who had been setting up the tents and watching the perimeter drifted toward their commander, hands on their weapons. Annick and Talal drifted out to either side to avoid being flanked.

“Stand down?” Valyn asked, conscious of the chill in his own voice but making no effort to hide it. “No one on my Wing has so much as bared a blade. It’s you holding the naked steel. Hardly a way for an Aedolian to greet the Emperor’s brother.”

“I serve the Emperor.”

“Last I checked, you were sworn to serve the entire imperial family.”

“Only those who remain loyal.”

Valyn snorted. “So Sami Yurl has been at you already. The Micijah Ut I remember wouldn’t have been duped so easily by a traitor’s lies.”

“Throw down your blades,” the man growled, “and we will determine who is lying.”

Before the conversation could continue, Gwenna shouldered forward, pushing past Valyn, her face twisted with anger.

“I’ve got no idea who you are, Aedolian,” she said, jabbing a finger at him, “but wearing that heavy helmet all day must have stewed your brains. Where’s Sami Yurl and that pet leach of his? We know they’re here-saw them just before we landed. We know they’ve been filling that stone head of yours with perfect idiocy while you let them run around unguarded. Wait a little bit longer, and they’ll have time to jump on their bird and fly off.”

She looked ready to draw her blades and hack her way straight through the Aedolian, but Ut lowered the point of his broadblade directly at her neck. “Take another step,” he said angrily, “and I will cut you down.”

Gwenna scowled, but she didn’t back off. One problem with Kettral training, Valyn realized suddenly, was that his soldiers didn’t have the healthy respect for bared steel and superior numbers that one would expect from a green Wing with an average age of seventeen. To the Kettral, everyone else, everyone including Aedolians, were just amateurs. It was an attitude Valyn understood, but it was also an attitude that could get them all killed. In addition to Ut and the two soldiers flanking him, there were a half dozen archers scattered through the rocks, arrows already nocked to their bowstrings. They were all on the same side-given time, he’d be able to make Ut see that-but everyone was exhausted and tense. There was no telling what lies Yurl had spread just before their arrival. It would be all too easy for someone to make a mistake, and any mistake here would turn fatal quickly.

“Back off, Gwenna,” Valyn growled.

“But-”

“Back. Off.”

She bared her teeth, but obeyed.

“Your weapons,” Ut said. “All of them, on the ground.”

Valyn hesitated. A soldier never willingly sacrificed his weapon, but this was an unusual situation. As long as the two sides remained in a standoff, they weren’t finding Kaden or hunting down Yurl. Someone needed to make a gesture of trust, and Valyn didn’t see any compromise in Ut’s hard, dark eyes.

“Let’s get this charade over with quickly and cleanly,” he said finally, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of his Wing. “Do as the man says.”

“I don’t like it,” Annick said. She might have been talking about too much salt in the soup.

“Neither do I,” Valyn said, “but this is Ut’s command. The sooner we do what he says, the sooner we can start doing what we came for-finding and securing Kaden. Besides,” he continued, trying to force some levity into his voice, “we don’t have much choice, do we?”

“I could kill him,” Annick replied. She hadn’t so much as raised her bow, but the soldiers in the rocks shifted warily. Several went so far as to half draw their bowstrings-a mistake, given she could draw and fire while they were still finding the range. Annick didn’t seem to notice. “One arrow through the eye. Your call.”

“Your sniper seems to have a little trouble with obedience,” Ut said.

“Yeah,” Valyn replied, glancing over his shoulder at her. “But she grows on you.”

“Tell her to drop the bow or she’ll be the one sprouting arrows.”

Annick looked unimpressed. “Still your call, Commander.”

“Just put down the ’Kent-kissing bow,” Valyn snapped. “All of you, get rid of your weapons. All we’re doing here is wasting time.”

The sniper shrugged, then set her bow on the ground. The others followed suit, but Valyn noticed that they kept their belt knives.

“The flier, too,” Ut ground out. “Get him off the bird, then we’ll talk.”

“I don’t know,” Laith replied. “You all don’t seem to be getting off to such a great start down there on the ground.”

“Off the bird, Laith,” Valyn snapped. “Now.”

He wasn’t angry at his Wing. They were playing by the book, playing it safe, but there was no benefit to a pointless standoff with a dozen Aedolians. At best, they’d end up wasting valuable time. At worst, someone was going to get killed. If Annick killed Ut, there was no telling how the men under him might respond. The last thing they needed was a pitched battle here at the ass-end of the world while Yurl and Balendin and the rest of their ilk looked on grinning from the rocks.

“There,” he said, after a few of Ut’s men had scuttled in to remove the discarded weapons. “Now that you don’t have to worry about Annick putting a chisel point through your armor, maybe you can listen to me.” It wasn’t the most diplomatic opening, but Ut hadn’t been exactly welcoming.

“Speak,” the Aedolian said.

Valyn searched for the words. “Sami Yurl and his Wing have colluded against my life, and Kaden’s as well. Whatever they told you, they’re here to kill him.”

“That’s what they told me,” Ut replied. “I wasn’t sure whether to believe them, but now you’ve confirmed it.”

Valyn stared. “They told you?”

A rich, sardonic laughter filled the evening air as Yurl himself stepped from behind a low boulder.

“I guess I gave you too much credit, Malkeenian,” the Wing commander chuckled. “I never thought you were all that intelligent, of course, but I didn’t expect you to actually help me.”

Gwenna growled something deep in her throat. Without taking his eyes from Yurl, Valyn clamped down on her wrist. He had no idea what was going on, but he wasn’t about to let her get herself killed over it. He turned his attention to Ut.

“If he told you he’s here to kill Kaden,” he ground out, “then what is he walking free for?”

He had to ask the question, although the sick feeling in his gut told him he already knew the answer.

“Because he’s going to help us,” Ut replied. “We came to kill your brother. I oversaw the destruction of the monastery. Most of my men are there now, cleaning up, hunting down the remaining monks. And tomorrow, at first light, we’re going to find the ‘Emperor’ and remove his head from his shoulders.”