Eric Flint's Blog, page 250

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 38

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 38

He couldn’t sleep. Not because of nerves, but rather because Pakpa snored. Her wheezing sounded like the giant machines at the worker’s foundry on the other side of the military district’s wall.

How can someone so beautiful snore like an elephant?

Not that Jagdish minded that Pakpa snored and constantly rolled around in her sleep, gentle as an ox, shaking their small, flimsy bed, and occasionally scratching him with her toenails, because her positive traits far outweighed those few negatives. As a warrior of low birth, he’d expected his arranged marriage to be to an ugly, stupid woman, but he’d gotten lucky. The workers had traded one of their loveliest daughters to his caste for additional security on a trade route, and Jagdish had been single and recuperating from his wounds, and thus available in time to sign the arbiter’s treaty, so it had all worked out.

Even his arranged marriage had been meant as an insult, marrying him off to a baker’s daughter, instead of a proper strong woman of the warrior caste who’d provide him with superior sons. His children would be looked down upon as half-caste. Only he liked coming home to Pakpa’s warm smile and kind words, and he had no doubt she’d provide him with many wonderful children. Jagdish had actually come to love his wife, and she seemed fond enough of him.

So he didn’t want to die tomorrow.

He must have sighed, because Pakpa snorted herself awake and rolled over. “Huh? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“How come?” She sounded confused. “Was I snoring? My sisters always accused me of snoring.”

All he could see in the dark was her lovely, general outline, but he had no problem picturing her beautiful face. “No. Your sisters lied because they’re jealous. You sleep like a songbird, delicately perched in a tree.” He thought about telling her what he was going to attempt — to better both of their lives — but he didn’t want to make her worry. “Go back to sleep.”

Pakpa rolled back over. “I love you.” She was snoring again within a few seconds.

Jagdish resumed staring at the ceiling beams, pondering dueling and death.

* * *

The next morning Jagdish watched the man he feared the most easily defeat one of the best warriors in the world.

Their guest was announced at the gate house as swordmaster Nadan Somsak dar Thao, from their mountainous southern neighbor, who had won high status through countless victories, until he’d become the Thakoor of a vassal family. His skin was covered in tattoos designed to strike fear in his enemies and he had a herald to read off a list of all the warriors he’d bested. He’d hired musicians to play drums and was even accompanied by an arbiter who announced that his travel papers had been approved by Chief Judge Harta himself, so Nadan Somsak had showed up with an entourage, legal standing, a great deal of fanfare, and a chip on his shoulder.

He walked to the center of the prison yard, spread his ink-covered arms wide, and shouted, “Bring me the fallen Protector so that I may defeat him! I have come to claim Angruvadal as my own! I will destroy the criminal and the whole world will sing praises to my name.”

“He’s a cocky one,” said one of the guards. “I’ve got ten notes says the Black Heart beats him in under two minutes.”

“You’re on, but only because he’ll slow down to give that tattooed mountain thug some pointers.”

All of the prison staff who could temporarily escape their duties had climbed the walls and towers to watch the duel. Jagdish noted that they were all making bets, but not a single one was betting on the challenger, but rather on how long he’d last or whether his life would be spared or not. The prisoner might have been the vilest form of criminal, but he was their criminal.

Haviladar Wat was his second in command and he joined Jagdish on the wall. “They’ve gone to fetch the prisoner.” He reached beneath one of the lamellar plates of his armor and pulled out a watch on a chain. “With your permission, sir, I’ll keep time. That way none of the men get into fights over who loses the bet.”

A timepiece small enough to fit in a pocket was rare and expensive. “How did you afford that, Wat?”

The young warrior grinned. “My winnings from betting on these duels, Risaldar. You see, there are marks for every minute of the day. It’s supposed to be very accurate.”

Jagdish had to squint, and even then he had a hard time seeing anything that small. “Remarkable.”

The drummer was beating a steady cadence. The man from Thao was still shouting below them. “Bring me the traitor Ashok, so that I may cut his throat and spill his casteless blood! The whore-spawned abomination must pay for the curse he’s brought upon this weak people!”

“What’s his problem?” Wat asked.

“The Somsak were a small house, renowned for their skill, supposedly some of the best mountain fighters in the world,” Jagdish explained. “Then a winter plague came through a few generations back and wiped out most of their army. Thao moved quick and invaded while they were weak. I suppose all those farmers were tired of being raided and decided to finish it once and for all. They say the Somsak bearer singlehandedly held a mountain pass while fighting five hundred Thao warriors, but his ancestor blade shattered on the very last one’s shield. They’ve been a vassal house ever since.”

“That’s quite the story, sir.”

“I’ve no idea if it’s true or not, but the Somsak think it is.”

“Still no reason to make an ass of himself.”

While the challenger continued his rant, the guards opened a gate at the far end of the yard and Black Hearted Ashok entered. There were no drums, heralds, or fanfare. He seemed far calmer than the night Jagdish had first seen him.

Nadan Somsak turned and saw Ashok coming. “I smell the ocean! It must be a casteless.” He hawked and spit in the dirt. The drummer quit playing and hurried out of the way. “Come here, so I can crack open your skull and wipe my ass with your brains. Look at you. You’re nothing. I can’t believe this is the casteless scum who made the Protectors into a bunch of dupes and fools.”

Ashok tilted his head to the side. Since he didn’t bother to raise his voice, it was difficult to hear what he was saying from up on the wall. “My life is of no value. I have no status, so you are allowed to insult me freely, but it is illegal to slander an approved order, so please refrain from maligning the Protectors.”

“The Protectors are a bunch of stuck-up idiots, all swagger, no heart, no balls, and wouldn’t be worth saltwater if they didn’t have the Capitol to prop them up. All the Protectors could be casteless as far as I know. You’re just the only one dumb enough to admit it. It wouldn’t surprise me if the lot of them had been sired by demons and squeezed out of whores. I piss on the Protectors.”

The warrior from Thao had succeeded in provoking the prisoner’s anger, and Black Hearted Ashok’s emotionless mask slipped just a bit, giving Jagdish a glimpse of the man he’d fought that night in the main hall of Great House Vadal.

“Hey, Wat, I’ll bet you two hundred notes against that little timepiece of yours that from the time the prisoner draws his sword to winning, you can’t count to ten.”

The young warrior was happy to take advantage of his naïve commander. “You’re on, Risaldar.”

* * *

Jagdish checked his new pocket watch. He could feel the gears turning inside through the thin metal body, almost like holding a mouse in his hand and feeling the vibration of its tiny, rapid heart. All one had to do was turn a knob several times a day, winding the springs inside, and a needle turned with the time, pointing at all the little dashes on the side that represented the minutes of the day. Though it was easier to just look in the sky and see where the sun was to know what time it was, this was truly a marvel of mechanical science. He’d heard that in the Capitol there were clocks now with two needles, so accurate they had one pointing at the hour and another for the minute.

 

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 02

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 02

“I didn’t know you knew so much about ships, Richard,” Leebrick remarked.

“Well, I grew up in the busiest port in England, so I picked up a thing or two. Enough to know I was never going to sea for a living. Did enough rowing as a lad to be sick of the sight of water.”

“’bout quarter-hour, for me,” Darryl said, which provoked a round of chuckles.

“We need some forward motion, or we’re just going to drift on the current,” Gayle called. “Stephen, if you call a slow stroke or something, you boys can save your sweat for going up the Lea.”

“Suits,” Hamilton said, “although we’ll get there slower, I suppose it’s as well to get there with some wind left for trouble. Watch me for a slow stroke, lads, and …”

That made things a little easier, Darryl found. With all six rowers pulling, even not making any great effort, the boat felt like it was travelling along at a good pace. After maybe an hour, and the Thames making no less than three near-hairpin turns, Gayle swung the boat hard left — or was it port? Darryl had no idea and cared less — and called out “River Lea, upstream from here, boys!”

“Not so hard, though,” Hamilton answered. “The Lea’s a marsh river, very slow. We’re not going far, just another mile or so. Less, as the crow flies, but there’s nowhere to tie up the boat this far down.”

Darryl bit down on a groan. And then, on a stream of riper observations. The unit of rowing distance wasn’t the backache, that had settled down once he got warmed up. It was the blister. And he couldn’t say a damn thing. Boat full of hardasses. Even one of the chicks was a hardass, nobody ever said Julie Mackay was soft. Come right to it, Gayle was made of pretty strong stuff and if Vicky was a little less steely, it was only by comparison with the two lady shooters. If Darryl was going to hold up the West Virginia hillbilly end of hardassdom in this boat, he’d have to keep his mouth shut. Even leaving out of account that there were women present, no matter how salty.

“Things are closing in somewhat, too,” Alex Mackay called back from where he was spotting for his wife. “Sharp eyes all round, if you please, we’re in range of even muskets now.”

Made sense, Darryl thought. The banks of the Lea might consist of low green growth that wouldn’t hide a man with a musket, unless he was willing to dig right in, but they were maybe twenty, thirty yards away each side. A musketeer willing to wade — and somehow armored against a boat full of hardasses with up-time weapons, granted — could probably get to ten yards’ range without getting his nuts wet.

“If one of you could stand?” Hamilton suggested. “We’re in flatter water now, it should be less tiring. And it makes sense we should be watching for river-rats and the like. An alert watch will deter them, if there are any about.”

“More a winter thing,” Towson said, easing into the faster, stronger stroke Hamilton had started setting. “This time of year they’re taking laboring work in the fields. Easier than robbing passing boats.”

“Easier’n rowing them, too,” Darryl added. “You know, this is the first time I ever rowed a boat? Paddled a canoe a couple times, but never rowed.” Apart from the sore hands, it was actually getting easier. And he was definitely better warmed up now. It helped that he had Hamilton ahead of him, who seemed to know what he was doing, and he was picking up little tricks as he went along.

“You’re doing fine for a first-timer, then,” Towson said. “The basics are easy enough. Most of the rest is working at it enough to be able to do it all day and every day without killing yourself, such as the watermen do.”

As he spoke, Gayle was putting the tiller hard over to the right, which nearly had Darryl clashing oars with Hamilton — on the inside of the turn, Hamilton was instinctively shortening his stroke and he’d nearly missed the change in rhythm.

“Of course there are some little things to pick up still,” Towson chuckled, “which is why you’re on this side between me and Stephen, and Master Cromwell is by you between Patrick and Anthony. Our two worst rowers where they can take stroke first and have a better rower behind them to pick up their mistakes.”

“Aye,” Cromwell added, “it was rowing that convinced me to stay a farmer. Did I run away to sea, I might have to do this more often. For all of me, I think rowing ought be a punishment for a blaspheming tongue.”

“All right, I got the message,” Darryl said, quite amused despite himself at the quiet and dry wit.

“Hard left coming up,” Gayle called.

“That means you take a longer stroke,” Towson said. “Watch Stephen for the right length and pressure.”

Darryl just grunted. All this effort and blisters and he had to think about what he was doing? Yeah, the guys who’d decided to stay on land were as right as right could be. Not a whit of argument from him, no sir.

****

“Just leave the boat,” said Anthony Leebrick. “But make sure you tie it up properly, Richard. Adrift, it’s likely to draw attention.”

Towson gave him a look that was not filled with admiration. “Indeed. And what other sage advice do you have, O my captain? Make sure that I don’t drive the wagon stark naked, shouting in every village we pass through that we’re the ones who just carried out the biggest escape from the Tower of London in English history?”

Leebrick gave him a grin that was somewhat sheepish. “Well . . . point taken.”

Gayle Mason, meanwhile, had been giving the wagon that Patrick Welch had brought out of the nearby village’s stable a look that was even less admiring. “I thought Harry’s coffers were the envy of Midas. He couldn’t afford anything better than this?”

“Which is exactly why I’m riding one of the horses,” Julie said. “No way I’m trusting my spine to that thing.”

“Swell.” Gayle gave the horses in question an equally sceptical examination. “But as I believe you know, ‘Gayle Mason’ and ‘horseback’ go together about as well as ham and―and―and―whatever. Not eggs. Maybe tofu. Or rutabagas.”

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 14

Come The Revolution – Snippet 14

Chapter Nine

“Sasha! Oh, thank God you’re alive!” Marr said, bursting through the door and into my one good arm, all in one blur of sound and motion. I’d been talking to the Munies non-stop for almost an hour and all of a sudden I couldn’t say a word. I just held her, eyes squeezed shut, lost in the touch of her hands on my back, the fragrance of her hair, things I didn’t think I’d ever experience again as the mob pushed me against that window.

The Munies started to object, but her counselor was back on the job and by the time Marr and I finished kissing, the three Varoki cops had vanished. In their place, Tweezaa stood with her back to the door, tears staining her face. I gestured to her and she came, arms around us and one of Marr’s arms around her, all three of us wordless as we clung to each other.

“How did you get here?” I asked after we’d regained some composure.

“I borrowed the Simki-Traak board’s executive shuttle,” Marr answered. “It’s still in the hospital landing bay.”

“Good. Who’s driving it?”

I had a plan forming but not everyone would think it was a good idea.

“Mister Huang,” she answered and then she looked at me closer. “Why?”

I moved back a little and looked both of them in the eyes in turn. We didn’t have a lot of time to work this out but they had to be convinced, not bullied.

“Because we need a pilot with a flexible approach to the law,” I said. “Huang will work. Here’s what I think we should do. Tweezaa, you’re The’On‘s legal next-of-kin, which means you’d be responsible for deciding his treatment, except you’re a minor. Marr, as her guardian, that puts you in the driver’s seat, right?”

She nodded.

“Okay, you can get him released to you and a private doctor. Can you get one here within the hour?”

“If we need to, but why?”

“We get The’On released and we all pile into the shuttle to take him back to the Valley House, north of the city. Only when we get to the Valley House, we keep flying. Huang files an airborne flight plan mod and we firewall the throttle for Kootrin, The’On‘s country. The frontier is less than an hour from the valley by air. We comm the uKootrin for permission to cross the border with a medical emergency. The’On‘s enough of a big-shot there they should agree, but even if they get nasty they won’t shoot us down.”

Her eyes got wider as I explained and she shook her head.

“We can’t just abandon our people here.”

“Hanging around isn’t going to do anyone any good; it just turns up the heat. We aren’t abandoning anyone. We’ll pick up our security detail. Best thing we can do for everybody else is get the hell out of here.”

“There are still things we can do here,” she insisted.

“Marr, as long as we’re in Bakaa, we’re going to be painted as ground zero of the trouble. If we’re gone and the trouble continues, they’ll find someone else to blame.”

She chewed on her lower lip, frowning in thought, reluctant to let go. I let her think. Since I came to on the boat, I’d been working it through, but it was a lot for her and Tweezaa to process all at once.

“We need to pick up Gaisaana-la,” Marr said. “She’s somewhere in South Tower Prahaa-Riz.”

I shook my head. “Everything in South Tower below the executive layer’s locked down, nobody in or out, at least right now. Those cops that just left told me. About three hundred Munie heavy tacticals are getting ready to storm South Tower and start clearing it level by level. They’re scared and their blood will be up. Even if we could get down below, if the Munies see either one of us, they’re likely to go nuts. The best thing we can do for Gaisaana-la is stay the hell away.”

“He is right, Boti-Marr,” Tweezaa said. “So many people here hate us, want to hurt us. Even before this I could feel it. At school I am afraid, and . . . I am so tired. So tired of it. Perhaps in Kootrin they will like us.” She stopped and looked down. Marr enfolded her in her arms and held her, then turned to me and nodded wordlessly.

*****

Three quarters of an hour later we had Marr’s hired doc. Our pilot Huang and I were maneuvering The’On‘s roller bed into the passenger cabin of the shuttle, up in the med center’s hanger bay, when a black and red-uniformed Varoki marched purposely toward us across the foamstone hanger floor. For a moment I considered having Huang fire that mother up and make a run for it, but this guy wasn’t a Munie. Black and red were the colors of CSJ, the Co-Gozhak Provost Corp.

There were one hundred and seventy-two sovereign political entities in the Cottohazz, the Stellar Commonwealth. Bakaa and Kootrin were just two of them, but pretty important ones. Still, get across the border and into Kootrin, and Bakaa had no way to get at you other than very complicated legal and/or diplomatic maneuvers, or an act of war. But the Cottohazz itself, the actual Stellar Commonwealth government, was different, and as the police arm of the Cottohazz the Provosts had jurisdiction everywhere, offices everywhere, operatives everywhere. There was no place in the Cottohazz we could run from them.

I touched Marr’s shoulder and nodded at the approaching CSJ provost. She stiffened.

“What do they want?” she asked.

“We’ll see. Don’t panic, okay? Everything stays simple. We give them what they want, then we follow our plan.”

He came to a halt by the passenger door. I climbed down to meet him and I could feel Marr and Tweezaa’s eyes on my back.

“Mister Sasha Naradnyo?” he asked.

“That’s me. And you are?”

“Lance Corporal Kindoon, CSJ. My superior, Captain e-Tomai, requests your presence in two hours for an interview concerning the events this morning at the Prahaa-Riz Arcology.” He extracted a paper-thin flexi-card from his uniform breast pocket and handed it to me. “This has your appointment code and should be presented at our headquarters complex which is in this arcology. The card will also provide free automated public transportation to the complex by passing it over the fare scanner. I am to ask if this is clear and if you have any questions.”

I looked at the card for a couple seconds. All it said was Captain e-Tomai and the time and date of the appointment. Everything else must have been chip-coded. I’d met e-Tomai before, worked with him on some joint security issues. He was okay, for a provost.

“No questions, Corporal,” I said

“Do you require any further assistance?” He asked,

I shook my head and he turned and marched back across the hanger floor.

“We’ll wait for you here,” Marr said.

“Like hell you will. What you will do is stop at Praha-Riz and pick up Iris Tenryu and as many of our goons as can still walk to provide security in Kootrin. The executive layer’s still open, so you can manage. No comm in advance though, okay? Just face-to-face instructions.”

“Why are you like this?” she said, her voice rising in anger. “You almost died! Your arm is in a sling, you’re bruised all over, and you need a Human doctor to look at you. I won’t leave you here.”

I smiled. “Sure you will. Maybe if it was just you, it would be different. But there’s The’On, Tweeza, and our unborn son, all of whom are absolutely dependent upon you one way or another. I’ll follow as soon as I can, but you’ve got to go now. Two hours from now it may be too late.”

“If it’s too late for us, then what about you?” The determination in her face flickered and then dissolved into tears. I held her with my good arm.

“Hey, it’ll be okay,” I said. “Remember, you guys are the real targets. I’m just muscle. Maybe they don’t like me, but I’m nothing to them. Once you’re away, they’re not going to care enough to cross the street to spit on me.”

“You lie so convincingly to everyone else,” she said. “Why can’t you manage it to me?”

*****

Two hours later I showed the flexi-card at the security station in front of the CSJ complex, submitted to the whole-body scan, gave a finger scraping to verify my DNA, and was escorted into the Sakkatto City regional office of Cottohazz-Gozhakampta Sugkat Jitobonaan — CSJ for short, or in English the Stellar Commonwealth Armed Forces Provost Corps. Technically they were the military police force of the Cottohazz. In reality, they were as close to a secret police as the Commonwealth had, and how close they really were was, of course, a secret.

Five minutes earlier I’d gotten the comm from Marr telling me they had just crossed into uKootrin air space and had picked up a drone escort, courtesy of uKootrin Ground Forces. They expected to be gear-down at the uKootrin capital in another forty minutes. Since CSJ knew pretty much everything going on, I imagined this was going to be part of the subject of my interview.

Back at the med/trauma center I’d finally managed to put Marr a little more at ease by reminding her that she’d never thought of the Co-Gozhak Provosts as essentially evil. For that matter I didn’t either. CSJ was just a powerful bureaucracy, a big black and red machine that would probably grind you up if you got enmeshed in its gears, but not out of sadistic delight. It just turned the gears and then whatever happened, happened. Hell, one of my best friends in my previous life had turned out to be an undercover CSJ major. A pretty decent guy, too, all things considered.

A Varoki lance corporal escorted me into the large foyer and stood with me as we waited for another guide to walk me to my appointment. The foyer was about three stories tall, mostly glass and polished metal. A very large replica of the CSJ service badge dominated it, hanging from the ceiling and slowly turning, the silver facetted surfaces catching the sunlight and sparkling. I’d seen it a lot of times in my life, usually the ten centimeter version worn on a provost’s chest. I realized I hadn’t seen one since I became fluent in aGavoosh. I wondered about the three black characters from the Varoki alphabet in the center of the silver sunburst device, characters I’d always ignored as gibberish before.

“J — H — S,” I said to the lance corporal. “What does that stand for?”

“Jiihi, Haramaayi, Sanzaat,” he answered immediately.

Knowledge, Resolve, Obedience.

I took a deep breath. Just a big bureaucracy, I reminded myself. Just a big bureaucracy.

A junior sergeant showed up and walked me through the internal security checkpoint, which served less to screen people than contain them. The local jammers came up and I turned down the feed volume on my commlink. The dull metal alloy of the sliding door looked like armor plate to me, about two centimeters thick, and it just let us into a holding room. The door on the far side opened as soon as the one behind us closed and clunked like a massive bank vault. Someone could force the security screening stations at the outside doors but they’d play merry hell getting into the bowels of the building.

And once you were in, you’d play merry hell getting out unless they wanted you out.

Although I’d dealt with CSJ liaison officers before, I’d never been to this office. Now I wondered why. This setup gave the guys behind the desks a hell of a psychological advantage. Maybe they didn’t want people to get too used to the experience, lest it lose its special luster.

 

The Seer – Snippet 08

The Seer – Snippet 08

It meant that Restarn thought Innel and his brother significant enough for the news to carry. And that meant Innel could push.

He met the king’s look, forced himself to appear composed.

“I must see to my mother. To make funeral arrangements.”

“No funeral. No gift ceremony. A criminal, Innel.”

If Pohut had won, it would be Innel’s body lying on this cold marble floor and Innel’s dead spirit that would wander aimlessly, only the memory gift ceremony to help him find his way to the great Beyond. Without which, he would be ostracized by family and friends, lost forever, wandering the twilight of death.

Or so the story went.

More importantly, the most dangerous place to stand with the king was between compliance and challenge, where he would notice you but not respect you.

“Mother could not bear that, Sire,” Innel said. “And so I cannot not bear it.” Not even close to true, and they both knew it, but the best he could do on short notice. “The gift ceremony. A full funeral. Please, Your Majesty.”

The annoyed look Restarn gave him now made him wonder if he’d gone too far. But then the king shrugged, the shoulders of his robe barely moving.

“Be quick about it, then.”

As Innel began to reach for his brother’s body, the king said, “No. Leave it.”

Leave his brother? For a moment he didn’t know what to do. Days on end, aching to put him down, to have him gone, but now he did not want to walk away.

No. Pohut had betrayed him. He was rotting meat. Nothing more.

And it was the king’s command.

With one last look at his brother’s body, Innel bowed and backed out of the room. Around him the Seneschal and various aides rushed in.

In the hallway the waiting crowd opened a path for him. He had walked out of his audience with the king. He met their eyes, looking for reactions. Many began to leave, perhaps coming to the conclusion that a free Innel was not wise entertainment. The crowd melted back.

He walked toward the residences, where his mother’s room was. Srel fell into step with him. By now the smaller man would know.

“What would you have me do?” Srel asked.

So Srel was still loyal. He felt a flash of relief.

“Plan a funeral for tomorrow. Tell the Cohort to be there. Make sure they know I’m not asking.”

Srel nodded and peeled off.

At the stairs up to the residences, Innel paused, alone for the first moment since he had entered the city. Really, since the night he had left the girl’s shack.

Without his brother’s body. Without a watching crowd.

He put a hand on the wall, his head hanging, breathing deeply for long minutes.

He had done it. He had said the right things. He had survived. This, the hardest trial of his life. His brother would have been proud.

His brother the traitor.

It didn’t matter. Tomorrow Innel would lay his brother’s body next to their father’s in the tombs outside the city, paying close attention to who came to the funeral and who did not, whose eyes were correctly blacked and smeared in the nine directions to show their grief, and those whose were not.

Now that he stood on Cern’s path to the throne, anyone who did not attend the funeral was foolish beyond reckoning, and foolish beyond that if they did not seem to be glad that it was Innel who had returned intact.

He thought of his competition across these many years, Tok and Mulack and Sutarnan and others, of how they had stumbled in ways large and small, losing the king’s backing or slipping in Cern’s esteem. How finally only he and his brother had remained.

As he arrived at his mother’s door, it came to him that he truly was Cern’s last, best choice. All he had to do now was win her back.

#

The king had been right: his mother knew. He could tell the moment he saw her.

She sat in a plush red chair, head turned away, face buried in a small handkerchief.

“The funeral is tomorrow,” he said, pausing for a response. She snuffled quietly. “You and Cahlen will be there.” A sound and a small movement with her head. Was it a nod or another sob? “Mother? Do you understand me?”

Both, it seemed. She curled forward, head down, shaking.

His mother had long seemed to him a fragile flower meant for other soil. Palace life had not suited her, not from the first.

“I had no choice,” he said evenly, walking the small room, feeling the need to be moving. “He plotted against me. Had been arranging my downfall for three years. He came at me, Mother. He meant to kill me. Do you hear me?”

Again, the shaking, wordless sound.

He sighed his frustration, wondering why she was still here. The king did not make a habit of keeping in the residences those were not useful to him. Like the women he’d bedded who produced to children. Cern’s mother, the only woman to provide him a living heir, but unable to conceive a second one, had finally been sent to a small town in Epatel. Ostensibly for her health, though ironically she had died there of some high desert illness.

No, he knew why his mother was here. It was to remind him and his brother of where they had come from and might be sent back to, if they did not perform. The simple power the king had over them. As if they might forget.

The door opened and in came his sister, Cahlen. She slammed the door shut behind her, eyes casting about, faced blotched with red.

Cahlen and his mother were both small, slender women, but there the similarity ended. His mother had survived palace life by being unnoticed. If she bore any ill-will toward the king for conscripting their father into the military for an expansion war that he quietly disapproved of, that had then killed him, and then giving her family business away, she never showed it. Silent, fragile, and well-behaved — she simply survived.

Cahlen was something else entirely. He remembered having to explain to his sister why she couldn’t wear the green and cream of the servants, why she must wear the palace retainer red and black regalia instead.

“I like the green better,” she had said stubbornly.

“That’s not important,” he’d said, already losing his patience with her but desperate to make her understand. He tried another approach. “Servants don’t work with the birds.”

That had been sufficient. The subject never came up again.

Today she wore appropriate colors, though her trousers were too long, her shirt overlarge, her shoulders spotted with bird droppings, and her hair uneven, as if someone had cut it in dim light using a dirty stew bowl as a guide.

Her gaze speared him and she charged, faster than he would have thought her capable. Once close, she began to batter him with tight, hard fists. He pushed back, trying to hold her at arm’s length. With his greater reach it should have been easy, but his exhaustion and her wild thrashing made her nearly impossible to control.

While he was busy trying to keep her from hitting him she kicked him in the knee, quite a bit harder than he expected. He swore and stepped back.

Again she rushed him, lips pulled back, snapping her teeth. Instinctively he raised an arm, the way he would have with one of the fighting dogs, and cocked it back as if to hit her in the snout. He doubted it would even slow her down, though, not when she was like this.

Across the room his mother stood, holding her hands over her ears, and gave a piercing scream.

At this the door opened. In burst three palace guards, all of whom Innel knew. As he tried to make sense of this unlikely intrusion, Cahlen came at him again, and the three guards sprinted toward her.

This had gone far enough. He let Cahlen step in close and put his weight behind a full-force push to the middle of her chest, propelling her backward while the guards stumbled to the side to avoid her. Cahlen sprawled, ass-first onto an open space on the carpeted floor. Now on her back, she stayed there, breathing hard, glaring up at him.

He turned his attention to the guards.

“What are you doing?”

He had never before seen palace guards break into a private residential room. Not for screaming, not for crashes of ceramic broken against walls. Not even for cries for help. Gossip would follow all that, certainly.

But guards? Never.

“Get out,” he told them. They hesitated, the two looking to the one clearly in command. Nalas, a man he knew. Then, with more force, he repeated: “Out. Now.” Nalas tilted his head toward the door, taking the other two outside.

Innel looked at his sister on the floor, still breathing hard, and wondered what was going on in her head. Cahlen could go from dead calm to bruising fury in an instant, then be over it in the next. A drenching rainstorm turned abruptly to blue skies. Once it had fully passed, the storm would be over. But had it?

 

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 37

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 37

Chapter 18

“Where’s your cane?” Pakpa asked.

“I threw it in the river,” Jagdish answered. He’d be damned if he presented himself to his new assignment looking like a cripple. Besides, his leg only really hurt in the mornings, or when it was too cold, or too hot, or when he walked, or put too much weight on it. He spread his arms so she could see his new uniform. “How do I look?” he asked his new bride.

“Like the finest warrior in all of Vadal,” she lied, or perhaps she was so still so happy to have been assigned a higher-status husband that she actually believed that. To Jagdish, when he looked in the mirror all he saw was a warrior so pathetic that he’d managed to lose a duel even when his opponent had been unfairly outnumbered, and who’d had a Thakoor die under his watch as a result. It had taken months for his arm and leg to heal enough to return to duty, but by then, the story had spread, and no fighting paltan wanted him.

“The finest warrior? I doubt that.”

“You will make an excellent risaldar.”

Pakpa meant well, but she’d grown up in the worker caste. She couldn’t grasp the nuances of rank and assignment within the warrior caste hierarchy. To her, being married off to a miserable failure of a soldier was still a huge step up in life. She didn’t understand that his new promotion was really intended as an insult. Only the worst places received names related to water, and he was being sent to Cold Stream.

Jagdish kissed his wife. “I must go. I can’t be late.”

He limped from their small home, through the streets of the city, south toward his new assignment, guarding the very bastard who had ruined his life.

* * *

The fallen Protector’s appearance had changed. He’d not shaved or cut his hair since the slaughter. His beard was long and unkempt, his hair wild and filthy, and now he truly looked like the casteless dog that he was. Like the other prisoners, he was dressed in gray rags.

The only noticeable difference was that sword.

“What does he do?”

“Nothing much, Risaldar Jagdish,” the prison guard told him. “We let them out into the yard for most of the afternoon, but he keeps to himself. I think the other prisoners are scared of him. He exercises, sword forms mostly, then runs several laps around the yard, but that’s it. When their time is up, we ask him to return to his cell, and he does. Then he just sits there and stares off into nothing.”

Jagdish stood at the tower railing, looking down into the yard and the prisoners who’d segregated themselves into groups. Most of them were here because of crimes not severe enough to warrant execution, but a judge had found them to have temperaments unfit for a period of slavery. His new charges were mostly thieves, debtors, and deserters. The roster said he had a few murderers and rapists from the warrior caste, who would serve their time and then be returned to duty, where murder and rape weren’t necessarily crimes as long as they remembered to only do it to their approved enemies and not their own people. He also had some workers guilty of that level of crime who’d not been executed, which told him they came from families with enough money to bribe a judge. Then there were the hostages, warriors taken from other houses in border raids, held here until their families paid a ransom or they were traded for Vadal men being held in other lands.

But none of those mundane prisoners interested Jagdish right now. “Has the prisoner caused any problems?” He had five hundred charges, but there was only one who could be the prisoner.

“None, sir. He’s unfailingly polite. In fact, Nayak Suchart was surprised by one of the more violent prisoners, who started choking him with a length of chain. Before any of us could get there, Ashok appeared and beheaded the attacker. Cut his head right off like it was nothing. Then he just walked back to his cell. Saved Suchart’s life, more than likely.”

“Yes. I’m sure they call him the Black Heart because it overflows with mercy.”

“I wouldn’t say that, Risaldar. It wasn’t mercy so much as annoyance. He told the prisoners that were watching that he wouldn’t abide anybody breaking the Law in his presence…Scared them, that’s for sure. Assaults have been down and we’ve not had a single riot since he’s been here. We used to have fights between the different hostage gangs all the time, but now they’re all scared of getting on his bad side. Most of the prisoners seem happy, you know, having a bit of entertainment.”

“The Law didn’t condemn them here to be happy, Nayak,” Jagdish said, not that he particularly cared about the nuances of the Law. He just wanted to fulfill this dead end detail until a proper war started, because then his value as a border scout would far outweigh his reputation as a lousy personal guard. “What do you mean, entertainment?”

“The duels, sir…Wait…You’ve not been told about the duels?”

“I’m a soldier. Nobody ever tells me anything. What duels?”

“Chief Judge Harta’s orders. Anyone who wishes to try and take the magic sword is allowed to duel the prisoner for it. We’re required to let them fight. They show up all the time. Not just warriors, but Harta even said to allow workers. Maybe he thinks somebody will get lucky or the sword will find somebody it likes better? Hell, he’s even let men from other houses have a shot. Said if an outsider won, they’d be given a Vadal obligation and promoted to the first caste!”

That reeked of desperation…But a promotion to the highest status was a rare thing indeed. Jagdish watched the prisoner, who had found a lip of rock on the perimeter wall and was doing chin-ups with his fingertips. “How many has he beaten?”

“I don’t know, but probably every fool crazy enough to try and earn himself a better place in the entire region. So far? He’s been here six months, so forty-five, maybe fifty. I’d have to check the guest log at the gatehouse. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.”

“I’ve been preoccupied lately.”

“We’ve even had a problem with spectators bribing guards to come inside so they can watch. That’s what got our last risaldar transferred. The judges must’ve not liked that one of us thought of a way to take bribes for something before they could…” He trailed off when Jagdish didn’t laugh.

“That nonsense ends. This is a prison, not a circus.”

“Well, it’s been like we’ve had our own personal arena and the prison has a champion gladiator. This must be how the first caste live in the Capitol,” the guard said with a wistful tone.

“How many of these challengers has the prisoner killed?”

“Not more than ten or twelve I think. It looks like he tries to let them live. Most, he soundly beats, then he gives them a lecture about how to fight better before sending them on their way. Them who piss him off though, they go into the furnace in parts. The Black Heart doesn’t strike me as the patient sort, but he’s got a particular sort of honor to him.”

The fact that one of his guards seemed so impressed by the prisoner annoyed Jagdish to no end. Only the lowest of his caste were given this assignment. There was never any chance for glory, but plenty of opportunity for failure. If they fulfilled their duty, none of their betters would ever notice, but if one of their prisoners escaped or killed a guard, there would be plenty of shame. The prison guards didn’t get to do the things a warrior was born to do, so it was no surprise they would be impressed by a fighter of the Black Heart’s skill.

“I want to speak to him.”

“You sure that’s a good idea, sir? I mean, I heard you were there that night…”

“Tomorrow, after exercise, send the rest back to their cells, but have the prisoner stay in the yard. I will meet him alone.”

* * *

That night Jagdish lay in bed beside Pakpa, thinking about what he was going to do the next day. Most would say it was foolish, but as a proud warrior, he couldn’t let such an opportunity pass. Low born, without any connections, the only other way he could rise in status was to become a war hero. A duel made perfect sense, except for that whole dying part.

 

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 36

Son Of The Black Sword – Snippet 36

Chapter 17

Grand Inquisitor Omand was stuffed. Say what you would about his not-so-gracious host, but among his household servants was one of the best chefs in the Capitol. “Thank you the wonderful dinner, Durmad, but I’m afraid I really must be going. I’ve got a long journey ahead of me tomorrow.”

The Lord Archivist was terrified but trying not to show it. Having the leader of the Inquisition show up unannounced at your estate for dinner tended to have that effect on people. “Where are you going?”

“I have business in the north. Vadal lands.” Omand waved his hand dismissively. “As you know, an order’s work is never done.”

His host sat on the cushions, staring at the nervously picked at plate of food in front of him. The food was excellent, so Omand was sad it was going to waste. It would be rude to ask to finish Durmad’s plate, and besides, Omand was getting a little soft around the waist as he reached middle age. The lady of the house had already made some excuses and fled at the earliest opportunity. Even the servants were scared to come into the room to clean their plates.

“Well, it has been a pleasure to see you again, Omand…” the Lord Archivist said, hopeful that the Inquisitor was actually leaving now.

“Always. My only regret is that your eldest daughter was unable to join us.”

The Lord Archivist looked up and swallowed hard. “My daughter?”

“Yes, Radamantha, I believe is her name. I’ve been told she’s quite the lovely girl, takes after her mother. You truly have a beautiful family, Durmad. Don’t worry. I’m sure she’s just working late and she’ll be home soon.”

“She’ll be home soon?”

“Yes, that is what I said, isn’t it?”

The Lord Archivist, wide-eyed, nodded. Omand noted that there were crumbs in Durmad’s beard.

“Important work, preparing all those reports for the judges. I look forward to reading her findings on the casteless question. It will be good to have such an important topic presented by someone so respected for her thoroughness. See to it she finishes them in a timely manner. Take care of that girl of yours, Durmad, for I foresee a bright future ahead of her.” Omand stood up, adjusted his mask, and then gave his host a polite bow. “I’ll see myself out.”

Omand took his time strolling down the hall, admiring the artwork and the excellent wood carvings. The Lord Archivist stayed planted there, staring and sweating until Omand was out the door. Omand had no doubt that the instant he was out of sight the old man would send a runner to the library to make sure his precious daughter was still in one piece.

I love my job.

His driver, Inquisitor Taraba, was waiting outside the estate, standing next to the carriage, holding the door open for his superior. “How was your evening, sir?”

“Excellent. Finest spiced duck I’ve had in years, steamed in some sort of chewy leaf I’m not familiar with. Absolutely delightful. Find out who their chef is and steal him,” Omand ordered as he climbed into the carriage. Taraba closed the door behind him, and sure enough, waiting within the shadows was Sikasso.

He was sprawled across the carriage’s opposite seat as if taking a nap. Sikasso wasn’t a member of the Inquisition. Quite the contrary, he was a leader of an organization that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore, but if it did, would surely be an enemy of the Inquisition. The assassin was an average-sized, unassuming man, somewhere between the age of twenty and forty, with a completely forgettable face. Tonight he was dressed like a junior librarian, tomorrow he’d appear to be something else. Neither of them spoke until Taraba had whipped the horses and the carriage was rolling through the Capitol.

“It is done,” the magically enhanced killer said, revealing that he’d not been napping after all. “The girl at the library won’t be a problem.”

“Not a problem dead, or not a problem compliant?” He had, after all, insinuated she was still alive to the girl’s father, and he’d hate to have gotten it wrong. Omand had a reputation to keep up.

“Alive as requested. I’m not one of your masked thugs, out there carelessly breaking knees and thumbs. My people are artists. Besides, intimidating the firsters is easy. Most of them are so insulated from violence that even the suggestion of it makes them fold. She’d probably never been threatened before in her whole life. I’d have your men keep an eye on her, but I don’t think she’ll talk to anyone. All that easy living makes firsters soft.”

“I’ve found that to be true myself.” Over the years Omand had tortured confessions out of members of every social strata, from the lowest casteless scum to chief judges. Everyone cracked eventually, but the ones who were the least used to sweating and bleeding usually cracked first. “A fantastic evening all around then. Better her respected name on the report than some drunken fool who the judges will mock.” Omand reached into his robe and pulled out Sikasso’s payment. He tossed over the pouch. “Are you ready for our journey to Vadal?”

“I look forward to it,” the assassin said as he opened the pouch and studied the contents. If his Inquisitors had a smile as unnerving as Sikasso’s then there would be no need for them to wear masks. Satisfied that the black steel fragment was of the agreed upon weight, the pouch vanished from Sikasso’s hands. “When the Protector’s sword shatters, then we get the pieces.”

“If…”

“When,” Sikasso stated. “The road you’re sending him down can only end in dishonor, and we’ll be there when it does. The fragments are mine.”

“That is fair.” An entire ancestor blade worth of magical black steel shards was worth a fortune, but so were the services of Sikasso’s organization. “You know my expected timeline.”

“I think your schedule is optimistic at best. I’ve killed more than my fair share of Protectors over the years, but I’ve always wanted to fight a bearer.”

Omand chuckled. “If everything goes according to my plan, you won’t need to.”

“You assume he’ll still do as he’s told. No man is that devoted to the Law, Inquisitor.”

“On the contrary, Wizard, from what I’ve learned of this Ashok, you might be surprised.”

 

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 01

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 01

1635: A PARCEL OF ROGUES

By Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis

PART I

May, 1634

Fareweel to a’ our Scottish fame,

                                  Fareweel our ancient glory;

                                  Fareweel ev’n to the Scottish name,

                                  Sae fam’d in martial story.

Chapter 1

“All right, let’s put our backs to it, “said Stephen Hamilton, as the barge carrying the rest of the escapees from the Tower of London began to pull away downriver, Harry Lefferts waving over the stern.

Hamilton waved back, then turned to look north, toward the left bank of the Thames. “We’ve some rowing to do,” he carried on, “and upriver, what’s more. Unlike those lucky sods.”

Darryl McCarthy grabbed one of the oars racked down the center of the boat and swung it overhead to drop into a rowlock. As the boat turned gently in the current, it brought the receding barge into view. “Hallelujah,” he said softly, “I’m finally rid of the Schoolmarm From Hell.”

He heard a mild cough and turned to see Cromwell frowning at him from the other end of the thwart he was sitting on. “What?” he asked.

“Young fellow, if you propose to be my recording angel as I go up and down in the world,” Cromwell said, “I would ask that you not blaspheme like the devil you make me out to be.”

Darryl’s jaw dropped.

“He’s got a point, Darryl,” Gayle Mason called over. She was getting settled by the tiller while Stephen Hamilton was organising himself on the rearmost thwart alongside Paddy Welch. “You got a potty-mouth on you.”

Darryl bit down on the first retort that came to mind. And the second. Because, he realised, both of them had been pretty ripe. Not four-letter stuff, but then that wasn’t nearly so big a deal nowadays. His mom hadn’t stood for Taking The Name In Vain, and hadn’t stood for it in capital letters with quite a lot of volume. Most folks nowadays set the bar on blasphemy even lower than she did. Some set it even lower still. Lowest of all for, let’s face it, Puritans. Like, for instance, one Oliver Cromwell.

Not so long ago, while maybe being a bit shamefaced if a lady’d called him on it, Darryl wouldn’t have cared two cents what Oliver Cromwell thought. Not Oliver get-you-to-hell-or-to-Connaught Cromwell. Not Oliver butcher-of-Drogheda Cromwell. He could have cared less what the man — demon, rather! — thought of the way a McCarthy spoke.

Now, though…

“All right, sorry. I’ll watch my mouth.” Goodbye, Schoolmarm From Hell. Hello, Puritan Watchdog. All the more ironic — a word he’d learned well from that very schoolmarm, who’d been amused by his detestation of the man turning into wary respect — that he’d insisted on following Cromwell to make sure he didn’t get up to the atrocities he’d committed in a future history that was now never to be.

“Backs to it, lads,” Hamilton called. “Mister Lefferts has left us transport at Stratford. Only a couple of miles up the Lee. Mistress Mason knows the way. Master and Mistress Mackay, Vicky, watch forward if you would. Now, ready oars and — stroke!”

The tide was running with them, fortunately, and the day was shaping up to be a cool morning. Darryl dug his oar in and pulled, watching Hamilton for the right way to do it. Damned if he was going to admit not really knowing what he was doing. Besides, how hard could it be? He’d paddled canoes back up-time, once or twice. There were six men rowing — Hamilton and Welch on the thwart astern of him, and Captain Leebrick and Dick Towson at the front. Alex, Julie and Vicky were perched in the bows on top of the load of baggage up there, with Gayle Mason perched on the crate holding her radio at the back.

Gayle certainly looked like she was enjoying the ride, the sea breeze up the Thames ruffling her hair as she scanned the river ahead. Darryl, for his part, began to find that rowing got old very fast. Like, five minutes fast.

“So, Stratford,” he said, timing his words between strokes of the oar, “that the place Shakespeare’s from?”

“Different Stratford,” Towson said from behind him. “Master Will, God rest him, was a Wiltshire lad. My da knew him. I can sort of remember him, a bit, but I was only a nipper when he went home to die.”

“There are a lot of Stratfords,” Cromwell remarked, leaning into his oar. “Three in Buckinghamshire that I can think of.” Stroke. “I used to go fishing at Fenny Stratford, when I was a lad.” Stroke. “We had cousins there. I remember –” Stroke. “It was a long day’s ride with my father.”

“Two in London,” Hamilton remarked. “We’re going to the one on the Lea. Bit of a hole on the Colchester road. Marsh country.”

“Making good time,” Darryl said, after a few minutes, thinking the while that maybe the unit of rowing travel wasn’t the mile, it was the backache. Or maybe that was why they called it knots, on boats. Because you got knots in your damned spine. Not that he could say anything with Vicky right behind him. Admitting pain in front of the ladies was bad enough, but a guy’s intended? He’d laugh while they sawed his leg off, if it came to that.

“Still downriver,” Hamilton said. “We’ll be turning up the Lea in a little while.”

“Get harder then,” Cromwell observed.

“We’re catching up to the barge,” Julie called back. “I reckon you guys should take a breather. Besides, the testosterone is crinkling the paint on this thing.”

“Up oars,” Hamilton called, and swivelled on his thwart. “The what is doing what?”

“Oh, come on,” Julie said, grinning back as all six rowers glared at her, Darryl hardest of all since he’d known what she was talking about. “Nobody wants to be the sissy who doesn’t row as hard as everyone else. Give it up, we’re not being followed and not likely to be for hours.”

“Well, I wasn’t rowing any harder than I learned as a lad,” Towson said, “and Master Hamilton set the stroke. How about you fellows?”

“Me neither,” Hamilton said. “And of course we’re going faster than the barge, they’ve got fifty souls aboard and there’s but the nine of us in this cutter.”

“Isn’t this a wherry?” Welch asked. He was a little flushed in the face, Darryl was pleased to note.

“No, a wherry’s smaller, they’re those little boats the watermen use upriver,” Towson said. “They have to be of a size set by statute to be licensed. This is bigger, I think Master Lefferts bought this one off a ship. Or stole it, if he didn’t like the ship’s master. I reckon it was a ship’s pulling cutter, the kind they use for towing them out of a lee harbour.”

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 13

Come The Revolution – Snippet 13

The brawny fisherman who’d pulled me in on the line looked up and then grinned and waved at me.

“Eduardo Socorro, call him Dado. He pulled you out, yeah?”

I nodded and waved back with my left hand.

“Other fellow’s Joäo Pacifico.”

The other one, shorter and wiry-looking, glanced up and waved once, as if to say leave him alone, and went back to his viewer.

“Other guy at the helm?” I asked and Ferraz nodded.

“Constancio, my partner. So you’re Sasha Naradnyo, yeah? What kinda name is Sasha? Sounds like a girl’s name.”

“Ukrainian, short for Aleksandr.”

“Short for Alexandre? We’d say Xandinho.”

“Can you get us back up-river to the Red Forest marina?” I asked. “We got a boat there I can use to lay low until I get a handle on this.”

“A boat? That’s nice. But no, we’re not gonna do that. River Watch already thick in there, diverting traffic. Be asking too many questions, yeah? We gonna get you to shore up here, at the commercial docks is what.” He turned back to the other two. “Joäozinho! Me jogar seu chapéu.” The short one took off his baggy black wool cap and threw it to Ferraz, who put it on my head and then pulled the bill down over my eyes.

“You’re Xandinho the fisherman at the dock, yeah? Mouth shut. One of us asks you a question, just nod. That way nobody wonders about some dangerous mastermind. This one we pulled out of the water alone,” he said, hooking a thumb toward The’On. “I commed for an ambulance, meet us up there. No drama, yeah?”

I wondered what a bunch of Portuguese fishermen were doing trolling the Wanu River, pulling out longjaws and blacksnaps they couldn’t even eat. I didn’t ask, though. It would have sounded ungrateful. These guys were getting me and The’On out of this, and with “no drama,” or at least as little as possible.

“Obrigado,” I said.

He frowned. “You know Português?”

“Couple words is all. Had a Brazilian girlfriend.”

“Brasileira? They crazy, yeah?”

“She did try to kill me once,” I admitted.

He nodded and looked back down the river at the towering form of Prahaa-Riz. “She got some company now.”

*****

The’On was still unconscious when we got to the docks and I was getting nervous about that. We loaded him into the waiting ambulance, and I rode along to the trauma/med center in Katammu-Arc. Prahaa-Riz was closer, but the Varoki medic riding in back and working on The’On told me both med centers in Prahaa-Riz were closed to admissions except from inside the arc. They were swamped with injuries. He also said it looked like The’On might have a cranial fracture.

I commed Marr and brought her up to date on The’On, not bothering to sub-vocalize. Tweezaa got on the circuit as well.

Boti-Sash! Is Boti-On going to be alright?

“I don’t know, Hon’. The medic says he’s stable, and his color’s good, but I wish he’d wake up.”

I saw the video feed of you in the water, the feed from your eyes. I do not . . .

She trailed off. For a while the three of us just sat, commlinked but silent, overwhelmed by what had happened.

“Is there any word yet on Gaisaana-la, ah-Quan, or Borro?” I asked finally.

No, Marr answered. No news at all and Prahaa-Riz below the executive layer is still blacked out.

That didn’t sound good.

I have to go, she said. I’ll have someone waiting for you at the med center. I love you.

“I love you both,” I answered and we broke the link.

I considered my options as the ambulance made maddeningly slow progress through the ground traffic, which seemed thicker and more frenzied that usual. A flyer would have had us to the med center by then, but a call from some Human fisherman didn’t rate one. If they’d realized the unconscious Varoki was one of the highest ranking diplomatic envoys from the Cottohazz Executive Council, things would have been different.

All I could see of the traffic was through a small rear window, but the faces on powerscoots and pedcycles looked nervous, frightened. The news from Prahaa-Riz had folks spooked, and for all they knew this could get worse before it got better.

So what was I going to do? Hiding out was pointless by now; the Munies would have locks on The’On‘s and my commlinks if they were that interested in us, and it sounded like they might be. I could power down, go black and make a run for it, but how far would I get with a bum shoulder? Besides, I didn’t have any cash so I couldn’t use any transportation, buy food, do much of anything without using my e-nexus credit line, and then I’d pop right back onto the data grid. So I’d have to face the Munies and see what that led to, but unless they were into manufactured evidence I didn’t see they had much on me.

The bigger question was where was all this going and what was I going to do to keep Marr and Tweezaa alive? They were the targets, not me. Folks might not like me much, but I wasn’t likely to knock the Cottohazz off its foundations. Neither were they, when you got right down to it, but the opposition couldn’t count on that, so they were the high-threat targets.

The opposition. . . who was that now that Gaant, e-Bomaan, and the others were all dead? Was there an opposition anymore? Well, Tweezaa’s relatives were all still alive, still hungry for her chunk of the fortune, and a lot of Varoki were scared as hell that a Human had saved Tweezaa’s life and that would warp her or something. So there’d still be an opposition, but they were going to have to find a couple new evil geniuses, and that might slow them down for a while.

That was their problem, not mine. Mine came down to keeping Marr and Tweezaa — and now The’On as well — alive. When you looked at it that simply, the answer was pretty obvious.

By the time we got to emergency trauma receiving at Katammu-Arc the Munies were waiting but so was one of Marr’s Varoki counselors-on-retainer. If I’d been an uBakai citizen it would have gone tougher on me, but since I still held my Peezgtaan citizenship there were diplomatic niceties to observe. Without a counselor there the cops might have overlooked that.

Varoki trauma/med centers are different from Human ones: a lot less clean than the hospitals on Earth, or even the clinic I used to fund back on Peezgtaan, and sort of cluttered, with lots of equipment just lying around. To me they look more like vehicle repair shops than hospitals. The Munies waited outside the treatment room while a Varoki doc worked on my shoulder: scanned it and then studied some reference imagery — probably to brush up on how a Human shoulder was supposed to look when it wasn’t all screwed up.

“Oh, I understand!” he said after a couple minutes. “Your shoulder was dislocated but has been relocated. However, there is still considerable inflammation there, and your collar thing — collar bone I mean — is separated from your, um, what is it? That sort of flat wingy bone?” He consulted the diagram again. “Spacula. No, sca-pu-la. Collar bone and sca-pu-la. What an odd word.”

He ended up injecting a pain killer and some NAMS — nano-machines — programmed to repair the tissue damage and tamp down the inflammation. Other than that he fitted me with a sling and told me to try to keep the shoulder immobilized. Meanwhile Marr’s Varoki counselor was giving me The Word.

“Answer every question they pose unless I tell you it is an inappropriate inquiry. Answer as completely and as cooperatively as you can. After all, we have nothing to hide.”

He said this staring earnestly into my eyes, letting me know he thought we had everything to hide and I should lie my head off, but since we were being monitored he was speaking for the record. Nice to have people in your corner who believe in you.

“How’s e-Lotonaa? Is he conscious yet?” I asked the doc. It was strange calling The’On by name.

“I can only share patient information with his family.”

“I’m family,” I said.

The Varoki doctor looked at me for a long moment, ears spread in surprise. “Not remotely,” he said, which I thought was pretty narrow-minded of him.

Once the doc was done the Munies grilled me for almost an hour, asking the same questions over and over but phrased differently. They were trying to catch me in a lie, or maybe they just weren’t sure what else to ask but had to put in the time to show due diligence. I’d have felt some sympathy for them if I hadn’t been the object of the exercise. After all, they were in a tight spot, no doubt about it. Near as I could tell, everyone in the room before the mob entered was dead except for five people. I was relieved to hear from them that Gaisaana-la and ah-Quan were two of the other three, although ah-Quan was in pretty bad shape. I had to admit, all four of us surviving looked mighty suspicious, especially since only one guy out of probably twenty-five or thirty on the other side had.

The fact that the death toll included three uBakai wattaaks and four of the richest guys in the whole Cottohazz meant the heat was on the Munies to put somebody’s head up on a pike, and I was the obvious candidate. The only thing in my favor so far was that every second of recorded vid of the riot showed me as uninvolved except as a victim. But like Ferraz said back on the boat, that wasn’t stopping every feed-head on the float from claiming I had to be behind it all. What would most folks believe: their own eyes or their own prejudices?

I knew where I’d put my money.

 

The Seer – Snippet 07

The Seer – Snippet 07

Now his spectators were past pretending to be on some other task, but simply stood and watched. From the Cohort he saw the curly haired Mulack, entirely in the purple and white of his House. He stood by a smirking Sutarnan, who was claimed by two Houses and yet dressed entirely in palace colors. They were whispering to each other and would, Innel was sure, be more than happy to see his body laid out by his brother’s by day’s end.

A servant held a covered dish smelling like duck that made Innel’s mouth water and stomach grumble. Just past him stood Tokerae, another cohort sibling, slouching against the wall, his heavy chain of copper and charcoal iron his only nod to his House. The same age as Innel, Tok was finally thickening after years of being painfully thin and overly tall.

As Innel met his look, Tok gave him the smallest of nods.

Well, so, there was at least one person in the palace who even now supported Innel. He would not forget that.

Three years ago Tok had quietly told the two brothers he would no longer court Cern and would back the two of them instead. Still, Tok had said, it would be best if that didn’t get back to his mother, Eparch of House Etallan, who was still harboring fond hopes of having a son married into the royal Anandynar line.

Ascending another long flight of stairs, shoulders burning, Innel walked another corridor. Word had preceded him, and this hallway too was lined with onlookers. He let his gaze slowly rake across their faces, seeing who looked back, who shifted away, who smiled in support, who grimaced with uncertainty. If he survived today, he would remember them all.

He headed toward the king’s audience chamber. A likely wait of hours, given the monarch’s usual schedule, but at least he could rest a moment, maybe even put his brother down.

To his surprise, one of the king’s retainers waved him over, holding him with a gesture, then exchanged a few quick, urgent whispers with the king’s seneschal, a gaunt man with graying hair who never smiled, who glared at Innel furiously over his papers. The Seneschal then waved him through the just-opening doors of a lesser audience chamber.

He did as he was told and walked inside. Behind him the doors closed.

At the end of the room sat the king, white-haired, white-bearded, sitting in a heavy ebony and bronze chair atop a dais. He leaned on one arm, the other hand slowly straightening the collar of his morning robe, which was the color of red amaranth.

Restarn esse Arunkel. Restarn who is Arunkel. A thinning face betrayed his age, but the old man was still strong enough to give the impression the empire ran exactly as he wanted it to.

By him stood Cern, arms crossed, hands vanished inside the loose sleeves of her similarly colored robe, her face a mask of indifference, a mirror of her father’s. That they both wore morning robes told Innel they had come from their rooms, recently woken. Possibly by reports of Innel coming back from his wandering, carrying a body.

Well, that was a kind of reassurance, that Restarn was willing to leave his bed to find out what Innel had brought home.

He could read nothing from them. The only emotion before him was at the king’s feet, where a pair of his favorite royal dichu dogs sat on their haunches, faces brindled in black and tan, eyes bright, black-tipped ears up and forward, noses twitching eagerly.

One of the dangerous jokes that one never repeated came to him, the one about how the king’s fondness for his bitches explained both the proliferation of dichu puppies and his single heir. Innel had heard it once, a long time ago, from a drunken scullery boy whom he had never seen again.

The king snapped his fingers and gestured. Both dogs dropped to their bellies, noses still quivering. Scenting his brother’s body, Innel guessed, even from this distance.

Prudence would say follow them down, so he did. Innel let Pohut’s body slide off his shoulders onto to the polished stone floor and went to his knees. He touched his head to the floor three times in the direction of his monarch and once to Cern.

Full formality. If ever there was a time for it, this was it.

“Your Most Excellent Majesty,” he said, wondering what to say next.

“Show us,” said the king.

Innel sat back on his heels, gestured to the knife on his belt. “With permission, Sire.”

Restarn waved him on impatiently.

Innel cut the knots and rent the fabric covering the head. He pulled back the burlap to reveal his brother’s face. Now no doubt remained.

In the silence that followed, Innel thought of many things. Of growing up in the Cohort, his brother at his side. Of their last, violent encounter. Of all his plans. With a small surprise, he realized he did care if his sister Cahlen lived beyond today.

He looked up. Cern’s mouth was open, her expression stricken, no longer anything like impassive. It was one thing to suspect and another to know.

She had cared for Pohut. The devotion with which the brothers had courted the princess their entire lives had paid off a few years ago when Cern had finally allowed that she held some small affection for them both. Then her father had pressed her to choose one, so of course she would not, carefully apportioning her attention to them equally.

His brother would have been quite pleased at the grief on her face now.

“Well,” the king said.

Innel got to his feet. What he said next could determine his prospects at the palace, his chances with Cern, and whether he would live to see sunset.

“He tried to kill me, Sire. Came at me with a knife. I had no choice.”

Short. Direct. Perhaps it would carry the force of veracity.

And it was true, mostly, though Pohut hadn’t actually used the knife, because Innel hadn’t given him the chance.

Don’t hesitate. Because he will.

Restarn’s silence hung. Heavy with implication, weighted with consequence. The king looked him over, then his eyes flickered to the body.

Long silences were one of the king’s tactics for getting people to talk. Innel had seen it many times in the monarch’s adjudications. A terrified petitioner facing the king’s expectant but wordless expression would babble. The mouth would open and damning words would pour forth.

Innel knew this, but even having watched innocent men talk their way to the hanging walls, he now felt an almost irresistible need to explain and defend. Clamping his jaw tight, he forced himself to think through what might be going on in the king’s mind.

It was no secret that Restarn was impatient to have Cern produce issue, to continue the Anandynar line and the unbroken rule of centuries. But surely he must realize that if he took Innel out of the picture, Cern could become mule-stubborn, refusing anyone else. Tempted though he must be, the king could hardly shove her in a cage and wait for her to go into heat as he did with his dogs. She must say yes.

It was a stand off as old as Cern.

Innel and Pohut had become, he suspected, the only candidates that she and her father could agree on. Innel was betting that the king could see that his life was worth more than his death.

But the king did not like having his choices curtailed, either, and might resent Innel removing one of the other possibilities as much as Cern did.

The next moment was too easy to imagine: the king would call an order, the doors would open, swords would be drawn.

A few years ago, an overly witty ambassador was beheaded exactly where Innel was now standing. By the time Innel and the rest of the Cohort had come to gawk, servants were mopping up the last of the blood and bits. The head had been mounted on Execution Square’s hanging wall for a good ten-day, a strangely thoughtful expression on the ambassador’s face.

At least it had been fast. Innel hoped he wasn’t important enough for the full treatment in Execution Square. Those tended to take a very long time.

He swallowed, throat dry, wishing for water, and looked down at his brother’s face.

Always the calm one, Pohut, even now.

When at last Innel looked up, Restarn was watching him, a terrifyingly thoughtful expression on his face. Then the king made a clicking sound behind closed lips, a sound Innel had come to know well: the monarch had decided.

“He is to be despised,” Restarn said flatly. “A criminal’s burial.”

Relief flooded Innel, and he sucked in air. He would keep his life today.

Cern stiffened, drew herself up, turned angrily, stormed out. Innel might be her best remaining choice, but that was not the same thing as winning her.

But he had survived; he could manage Cern. A problem for later.

“I’ll expect you at the meal,” the king said, ignoring Cern’s departure. “Get cleaned up.”

“I should see my mother, Sire. Tell her. She should know.”

“She already knows. The entire palace knows. Half the city knows.”

Half the city?

Restarn said more with tone than he did with words, and woe to those who didn’t hear. Like the witty ambassador. What did this mean?

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 12

Come The Revolution – Snippet 12

Chapter Eight

Screams filled my ears until we hit the surface of the Wanu River, hit it hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs, almost hard enough to knock me out. Muffled and remote underwater sounds replaced bedlam. Groggy and disoriented, I wasn’t sure which direction was up until my feet sank into the weeds and bottom muck. My right arm was useless and I still had the front of The’On‘s tunic crumpled in my left fist. He floated limp beside me. I couldn’t let go, he’d drown. I pushed off from the bottom and kicked with my feet as hard as I could. I didn’t seem to be making any progress. I started feeling dizzy from oxygen starvation, could hardly keep my straining lungs from sucking in the Wanu River, when the water around me got lighter and then I broke surface.

Air! I vacuumed in a big, shuddering lung-full and my vision cleared, sound came back — people crying for help, screaming in pain and fear, splashing into the water. I looked around, oriented myself. We were close to the river bank, near the base of Prahaa-Riz, but the river was deep like a canal, so we’d had enough water under us to absorb our fall. Folks after us hadn’t been as lucky and lots were still falling from the shattered windows, tumbling down like an organic waterfall to land with soft thuds among the heaps of still-twitching bodies along the river bank. Only the first of us had been thrown far enough out to reach deeper water and avoid being crushed by the bodies cascading down afterwards.

It was hard treading water with just my legs, but I needed my one good arm to keep The’On‘s head up. I wasn’t sure he was breathing but couldn’t do anything about it in the water so I started kicking us toward the bank. I hadn’t gone far when one of the Varoki pulling himself up out of the shallows noticed us.

“There, the Human! The one who killed the Guide!”

Killed Gaant! ME? Well, just about everyone who actually saw what happened was probably dead by now, so it made sense to just blame the closest Human. The Varoki groped in the shallow water and came up with a good sized rock, threw it but it fell several meters short. He started looking for another one and a couple of the dazed survivors on the bank started pointing and shouting as well, wading into the water toward us. I kicked harder, now pulling us away from the shore.

The river was too wide to swim this way. As it was I was already tiring and barely making headway, but I had to get away. Reason and calm words weren’t going to get me very far with the Varoki survivors on the bank. I stopped for a second and used my good hand to push the back of The’On’s collar into my mouth. I held it with my teeth and started kicking again and doing a half-assed back stroke with one arm. I made better progress but I could hardly keep my head above water and was having trouble breathing.

I got another twenty or thirty meters out but my breath came in ragged gasps and my legs were losing power. I needed to take a break, catch my breath, but couldn’t with The’On. I wasn’t sure I could make it back to shore even if the mob weren’t there, and I felt panic start to tighten my throat. I got a nose-full of water by mistake and started choking. That’s when something hit me in the head from behind. Fortunately, it was a rescue float.

I let go of The’On‘s collar, twisted around, and saw a commercial fishing boat about ten meters away, idling in the channel, with four Humans along the rail yelling in English to me. One of them held the line attached to the float. Problem: I was still coughing, still couldn’t manage to gulp down any air, and I’d pass out pretty soon unless I could. I wrapped my legs around The’On‘s torso and grabbed for the float’s handholds with my good hand.

Got it!

I threw my chest over the float and coughed the water out of my lungs as the crew dragged us alongside. A great big guy bent over the rail, grabbed my good arm, and started lifting. He could have managed me, but I still had my legs wrapped around The’On and the extra weight stalled him. He struggled for a couple seconds and then growled.

“Let the leatherhead go, yeah?”

Leatherhead. That’s what Humans called Varoki sometimes. It’s what I used to call them, back before a lot of things happened to me.

“Drop him!” the fisherman repeated.

I shook my head. “He’s my friend.”

He let go and I splashed back into the water. “Fuck you, then. Drown with your leatherhead friend, yeah?”

One of the other fishermen started pulling in the line to recover the float but I hooked my good arm through one of the flexible loops and held on with what strength I had left.

“Let go!” the big fisherman said.

“Leave me the float,” I said. “At least give us a Goddamned chance!”

“I give you boathook is what,” he said and turned away from the rail. The fisherman who’d pulled the line taut looked at me, frowning but not angry. When the big guy reappeared with a nasty-looking all-metal boat hook, the three others started talking to him. Up until then we’d been talking English. I didn’t understand the language they argued in now, but I recognized it: Portuguese.

After maybe a minute of spirited argument the big guy lowered the boat hook, leaned over the rail, and looked at me. Since my one good arm was tangled in the rescue float and I was mostly out of the water, hanging from the rail by the rescue line, I was about as helpless as I could get. There wasn’t any point in giving him a tough-guy glare; I had nothing. But I wasn’t going to let go of The’On, no matter what. So I just looked back at him and after a couple second he shrugged.

He said something in Portuguese I couldn’t understand and walked away.

The other three fishermen pulled me and The’On over the rail and onto the deck.

I didn’t have much strength left but I’d at least recovered my breath. I checked The’On for a pulse. It was faint, even for a Varoki, but his plumbing was still working. He wasn’t breathing, though, so I started mouth-to-mouth and after about five good puffs he vomited river water and started coughing.

That’s about when a stabbing axe blade of pain reminded me how messed up my shoulder was. The fatigue, trauma, and reaction to the adrenaline high all came home at the same time and I passed out. Didn’t even feel myself go clunk against the deck.

*****

I came to, felt the soft vibration of the boat’s electric motors through the metal deck, found my arm strapped against my body and the shoulder packed in ice. Shoulder felt different, too — still hurt, but in a different way. Propped up against a metal locker, I sat up straighter, looked for The’On. He was a couple meters away, lying on his stomach, still unconscious. Vomit stained the deck around his face — that alarming orangey-pink Varoki vomit that looks too much like blood — but he was breathing.

I squinted up my comm link and saw I was still recording on the locked channel. I cut it and commed Marr, sub-vocalizing to keep it private.

Sasha! Oh, thank God you’re alive! The feed just went out. I didn’t know —

The’On’s hurt and I’m banged up a little, unconscious for a while, but we’re both alive. Have you heard from the others?>

The comms are blacked out in Prahaa-Riz below Level Two Hundred. You must be outside the effect radius.

From when the trouble started, yes. I could hardly watch, and when the window broke…

Her voice faltered and I could hear her crying softly. I tried to imagine what I’d have felt seeing that feed, knowing it was through her eyes and ears, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine it, or what I’d have done waiting to find out the rest. I got choked up myself.

The fishermen noticed the movement and the big guy started walking over.

I love you, she answered, voice wavering.

I cut the link as he got to me and looked down.

“So, not dead, yeah?”

I touched my ice pack. “Sore as hell.”

“We pushed shoulder back in. Not good to leave it out like that. So you the Sasha fellow on the vid feed?”

“Probably.”

He looked over at The’On‘s stationary form.

“So you like the leatherheads, yeah?”

“A couple of them. What’s the vid on me?”

He glanced over his shoulder where two of the crew in viewer glasses stood in the lee of the small superstructure. The big guy nodded at them.

“Still coming in, yeah? Different feeds, all show you standing there mouth open and dick in your hand when hell breaks loose. Feed-heads going on about what a mastermind you must be. You know, to arrange the whole thing and then look so stupid-surprised when it happened. You really that smart?”

“Do I look like it to you?” I asked.

“I think maybe I like you better if you did it.” Then he shrugged, as if letting go — letting go of the idea he’d rescued a Human outlaw who’d just masterminded the biggest and most brutal mass killing of Varoki bigshots in history. Yeah, that’d be something to tell the grandkids someday. “My name — Cézar Ferraz,” he said. “Over there is–Hey! Dado!”