1163rd Year of Blaze’s Slumber

  105th Year of the Nazalam Empire

  9th Year of Empress Lasean’s Rule

  Pa’an knew that his early years in the noble courts of his homeland had prepared him well for the kind of deception Supplement Loren demanded of him. In the past two years, however, he had begun to recognize more clearly what he was becoming. That brash, honest youth who had spoken with the Empress’s Supplement that day on the Nvse Kenese coast now gnawed at him. He’d dropped right into Loren’s lap like a lump of unshaped clay. And she had proceeded to do what she did best.

  What frightened Pa’an most, these days, was that he had grown used to being used. He’d been someone else so many times that he saw a thousand faces, heard a thousand voices, all at war with his own. When he thought of himself, of that young noble-born man with the overblown faith in honesty and integrity, the vision that came to him now was of something cold, hard and dark. It hid in the deepest shadows of his mind, and it watched. No contemplation, no judgement, just icy, clinical observation.

  He didn’t think that that young man would see the light of day again. He would just shrink further back, swallowed by darkness, then disappear, leaving no trace.

  And Pa’an wondered if he even cared any more.

  He marched into the barracks that had once housed Liet’s Aristocratic Guardsmen. One old veteran lounged on a nearby cot, her rag-wrapped feet jutting over the end. The mattress had been stripped away and tossed into a corner; the woman lay on the flat boards, her hands behind her head.

  Pa’an’s gaze held on her briefly, then travelled down the ward. With the lone exception of the veteran marine, the place was empty. He returned his attention to her. ‘Corporal, is it?’

  The woman didn’t move. ‘Yeah, what?’

  ‘I take it,’ he said drily, ‘that the chain of command has thoroughly disintegrated around here.’

  Her eyes opened and managed a lazy sweep of the officer standing before her. ‘Probably,’ she said, then closed her eyes again. ‘You looking for somebody or what?’

  ‘I’m looking for the Ninth Squad, Corporal.’

  ‘Why? They in trouble again?’

  Pa’an smiled to himself. ‘Are you the average Linktorcher, Corporal?’

  ‘All the average ones are dead,’ she said.

  ‘Who’s your commander?’ Pa’an asked.

  ‘Wired, but he’s not here.’

  ‘I can see that.’ The captain waited, then sighed. ‘Well, where is this Wired?’

  ‘Try Knob’s Tavern, up the street. The last I saw of him he was losing his shirt to Hedgerow. Wired’s a card-player, right, only not a good one.’ She began picking at a tooth at the back of her mouth.

  Pa’an’s brows rose. ‘Your commander gambles with his men?’

  ‘Wired’s a sergeant,’ the woman explained. ‘Our captain’s dead. Anyway, Hedgerow is not in our squad.’

  ‘Oh, and what squad is he with?’

  The woman grinned, swallowing whatever her finger had dislodged. ‘The Ninth.’

  ‘What’s your name, Corporal?’

  ‘Grain, what’s yours?’

  ‘Captain Pa’an.’

  Grain shot up into a sitting position, her eyes wide. ‘Oh, you’re the new captain who’s yet to pull a sword, eh?’

  Pa’an grinned. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You got any idea of the odds on you right now? It doesn’t look good.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She smiled a broad smile. ‘The way I pick it,’ she said, leaning back down and closing her eyes again, ‘the first blood you see on your hands is gonna be your own, Captain Pa’an. Go back to Guan where it’s safe. Go on, the Empress needs her feet licked.’

  ‘They’re clean enough,’ Pa’an said. He was not sure how to deal with this situation. Part of him wanted to draw his sword and cut Grain in half. Another wanted to laugh, and that one had an edge of hysteria to it.

  Behind him the outer door banged open and heavy footsteps sounded on the floorboards. Pa’an turned. A red-faced sergeant, his face dominated by an enormous handlebar moustache, stormed into the room. Ignoring Pa’an, he strode up beside Grain’s cot and glowered down at her.

  ‘Dammit, Grain, you told me Hedgerow was having a bad run, and now that bow-legged turd’s cleaned me out!’

  ‘Hedgerow is having a bad run,’ Grain said. ‘But yours is worse. You never asked me about that, did you? Wired, meet Captain Pa’an, the Ninth’s new officer.’

  The sergeant swung around and stared. ‘Cowl’s Puff,’ he muttered, then faced Grain again.

  ‘I’m looking for Uiscejacques, Sergeant,’ Pa’an said softly.

  Something in the captain’s tone brought Wired around. He opened his mouth, then shut it when his eyes caught Pa’an’s steady gaze. ‘Some kid delivered a message. Uiscejacques trooped out. A few of his people are at Knob’s.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ Pa’an walked stiffly from the room.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Wired let out a long breath and glanced at Grain.

  ‘Two days,’ she pronounced, ‘then somebody does him. Ancient Stonemug has already laid twenty to that.’

  Wired’s expression tightened. ‘Something tells me that’d be a damned shame.’

  Pa’an entered Knob’s Tavern and stopped just inside the doorway. The place was packed with soldiers, their voices a jumbled roar. Only a few showed on their uniforms the flame emblem of the Linktorches. The rest were 2nd Infantry.

  At a large table beneath an overhanging walkway that fronted rooms on the first floor half a dozen Linktorches sat playing cards. A wide-shouldered man whose black hair was braided into a pony-tail and knotted with charms and fetishes sat with his back to the room, dealing out the cards with infinite patience. Even through the high-tide roar, Pa’an could hear the man’s monotone counting. The others at the table deluged the dealer with curses, to little effect.

  ‘Rodpallin,’ Pa’an murmured, his gaze on the dealer. ‘Only one in the Linktorches. That’s the Ninth, then.’ He took a deep breath, then plunged into the crowd.

  By the time he arrived behind the Rodpallin his fine cloak was drenched with sour ale and bitter wine, and sweat cast a shine on his forehead. The Rodpallin, he saw, had just finished the deal and was setting down the deck in the table’s centre, revealing as he did so the endless blue woad tattooing on his bared arm, the spiral patterns marred here and there by white scars.

  ‘Is this the Ninth?’ Pa’an asked loudly.

  The man opposite the Rodpallin glanced up, his weathered face the same colour as his leather cap, then returned his attention to his cards. ‘You Captain Pa’an?’

  ‘I am. And you, soldier?’

  ‘Hedgerow.’ He nodded at the heavy man seated to his right. ‘That’s Maul, the squad’s healer. And the Rodpallin’s name is Lope, and it ain’t because he likes jogging.’ He jerked his head to his left. ‘The rest don’t matter – they’re Second Infantry and lousy players to boot. Take a seat, Captain. Uiscejacques and the rest have been called out for the time being. Should be back soon.’

  Pa’an found an empty chair and pulled it up between Maul and Lope.

  Hedgerow growled, ‘Hey, Lope, you gonna call this game or what?’

  Releasing a long breath, Pa’an turned to Maul. ‘Tell me, Healer, what’s the average life expectancy for an officer in the Linktorches?’

  A grunt escaped Hedgerow’s lips. ‘Before or after Satellite’s Offspring?’

  Maul’s heavy brows rose slightly as he answered the captain. ‘Maybe two campaigns. Depends on a lot of things. Balls ain’t enough, but it helps. And that means forgetting everything you learned and jumping into your sergeant’s lap like a babe. You listen to him, you might make it.’

  Hedgerow thumped the table. ‘Wake up, Lope! What are we playing here?’

  The Rodpallin scowled. ‘I’m thinking,’ he rumbled.

  Pa’an leaned back and unhitched his belt.

  Lope decided on a game, to the groans of Hedgerow, Maul and the three 2nd Infantry soldiers, since it was the game Lope always decided on.

  Maul spoke. ‘Captain, you’ve been hearing things about the Linktorches, right?’

  Pa’an nodded. ‘Most officers are terrified of the Linktorches. Word is, the mortality rate is so high because half the captains end up with a dagger in their back.’

  He paused, and was about to continue when he noticed the sudden silence. The game had stopped, and all eyes had fixed on him. Sweat broke out under Pa’an’s clothing. ‘And from what I’ve seen so far,’ he pressed on, ‘I’m likely to believe that rumour. But I’ll tell you something – all of you – if I die with a knife in my back, it’d better be because I earned it. Otherwise, I will be severely disappointed.’ He hitched his belt and rose. ‘Tell the sergeant I’ll be in the barracks. I’d like to speak with him before we’re officially mustered.’

  Hedgerow gave a slow nod. ‘Will do, Captain.’ The man hesitated. ‘Uh, Captain? Care to sit in on the game?’

  Pa’an shook his head. ‘Thanks, no.’ A grin tugged the corner of his mouth. ‘Bad practice, an officer taking his enlisted men’s money.’

  ‘Now there’s a challenge you’d better back up some time,’ Hedgerow said, his eyes brightening.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Pa’an replied, as he left the table. Pushing through the crowd, he felt a growing sense of something that caught him completely off-guard: insignificance. A lot of arrogance had been drilled into him, from his days as a boy among the nobility through to his time at the academy. That arrogance now cowered in some corner of his brain, shocked, silent and numb.

  He had known that well before he’d met the Supplement: his path into and through the officer training corps of the Navy Academy had been an easy procession marked by winks and nods. But the Empire’s wars were fought here, thousands of leagues away, and here, Pa’an realized, nobody cared about one with court influences and mutually favourable deals. Those short-cuts swelled his chances of dying, and dying fast. If not for the Supplement, he’d have been totally unprepared to take command.

  Pa’an grimaced as he pushed open the tavern door and stepped out into the street. It was no wonder the old Emperor’s armies had so easily devoured the feudal kingdoms in his path on the road to Empire. He was suddenly glad of the stains marring his uniform – he no longer looked out of place.

  He strode into the alley leading to the barracks’ side entrance. The way lay in shadow beneath high-walled buildings and the faded canopies that hung over sagging balconies. Liet was a dying city. He knew enough of its history to recognize the bleached tints of long-lost glory. True, it had commanded enough power to forge an alliance with Satellite’s Offspring, but the captain suspected that that had had more to do with the Satellite’s lord’s sense of expedience than to any kind of mutual recognition of power. The local gentry made much of finery and pomp, but their props looked tired and worn. He wondered how alike he and his kind were with these droopy citizens—

  A sound behind him, the faintest scuff, made him turn. A shadow-wrapped figure closed on him. Pa’an cried out, snatching at his sword. An icy wind washed over him as the figure moved in. The captain backpedalled, seeing the glint of blades in each hand. He twisted to one side, his sword half-way out of the scabbard. His attacker’s left hand darted up. Pa’an jerked his head back, throwing his shoulder forward to block a blade that never arrived. Instead, the long dagger slid like fire into his chest. A second blade sank into his side even as blood gushed up inside to fill his mouth. Coughing and groaning, Pa’an reeled, careened off a wall, then slid down with one hand grasping futilely at the damp stones, his fingernails gouging tracks through the mould.

  A blackness closed around his thoughts which seemed to involve only a deep, heartfelt regret. Faintly, a ringing sound came to his ears, as if something small and metallic was skittering across a hard surface. The sound remained, of something spinning, and the darkness encroached no further.

  ‘Sloppy,’ a man said in a thin voice. ‘I am surprised.’ The accent was familiar, pulling him to a childhood memory, his father dealing with Daal Hunese traders.

  The answer came from directly above Pa’an. ‘Keeping an eye on me?’ Another accent he recognized, Kenese, and the voice seemed to come from a girl, or a child, yet he knew it was the voice of his killer.

  ‘Coincidence,’ the other replied, then giggled. ‘Someone – something, I should say – has entered our Warenne. Uninvited. My Canines hunt.’

  ‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’

  Again came the giggle. ‘Nor do I. Two years ago we began a game of our own. A simple settling of old scores. It seems we have stumbled into a wholly different game here in Liet.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘I shall have that answer soon enough.’

  ‘Don’t get distracted, Sutta. Lasean remains our target, and the collapse of the Empire she rules but never earned.’

  ‘I have, as always, supreme confidence in you, Quadrille.’

  ‘I must be getting back,’ the girl said, moving away.

  ‘Of course. So this is the man Loren sent to find you?’

  ‘I believe so. This should draw her into the fray, in any case.’

  ‘And is this desirable?’

  The conversation faded as the two speakers walked away leaving, as the only sound in Pa’an’s head, that whirring hum, as if a coin was spinning, endlessly spinning.