Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades (18 page)

“So there
weren’t
any tracks to memorize,” Kaden said under his breath, thinking back to that first, brutal session with his
umial,
feeling resentful and vindicated at the same time.

“You’re not a complete failure after all,” Akiil replied with a smirk.

“Shhh,” Pater hissed from atop Kaden’s shoulders, batting him on the head with a small, imperious hand.

Nin was passing a few scrolls to the monks sitting in the front row. “I’d like to know, first, if anyone has seen these tracks before.”

He waited patiently for the scrolls to circulate slowly toward the back of the room. Kaden watched as each monk took the paper, memorized it, then passed it on to his neighbor. The novices required more time, careful to make sure they etched the correct details on their memories, and a few minutes passed before the paintings reached the back. Someone handed a parchment to Akiil, who held it out where those around him could consider it.

Kaden wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting: a variant on a crag cat print maybe, or something with the broad paws and deep claws of a bear. What he found himself staring at, however, was unlike any animal track he’d encountered. It wasn’t made by a paw or pad—that much was clear. He couldn’t even tell how many
feet
the thing had.

“What in ’Shael’s name is
that
?” Akiil asked, turning the parchment in an effort to make sense of it.

The painting showed a dozen indentations, the kind of marks a medium-sized stick might make if driven repeatedly into the ground—a
sharp
stick. None of them measured more than two inches across, but the spacing suggested a creature the size of a large dog. Kaden looked closer. Half those marks appeared to be divided in two by a thin line, as though the foot, or whatever it was, was split.

“Cloven,” Akiil observed. “Maybe some sort of hoof.”

Kaden shook his head. A cleft would be wider, separating the two toes—the whole point of a cloven hoof was to offer the animal stability; it was what allowed the goats to keep their footing on the uneven terrain. Besides, the shape of the prints was wrong. They didn’t look so much like hooves as they did like claws with the pincers squeezed shut. Reluctantly, he called to mind the
saama’an
of the goat’s mutilated carcass, studying the severed neck, the shattered skull. Claws could inflict those sorts of wounds—big claws, at least. An uneasy chill tickled his spine. What kind of creature the size of a goat had twelve pincered legs?

“Now that you’ve had a chance to see the paintings,” Nin said, “has anyone come across tracks like these before?”

“I’m not convinced that they
are
tracks,” Serkhan Kundashi said, stepping forward from the wall. “Looks like the scratching of a stick on the ground.”

“There was no stick,” the abbot replied.

“I’ve lived in these mountains for thirty years,” said Rebbin, the overseer of the refectory. “I’ve cooked everything there is to cook, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The abbot nodded grimly, as though he had been expecting as much. He opened his mouth to continue when someone near the front spoke up.

Kaden couldn’t see over the crowd, but from the slow, gentle voice, it had to be Yerrin, the hermit. Although Yerrin wore Shin robes and followed the Shin discipline, he kept himself apart from the rest, sleeping in a cave halfway to the Circuit of Ravens, appearing unexpectedly two or three times a month to scrounge food from the refectory or a scrap of thread from the storeroom. The man was dirty but kind. He had named every tree and half the animals in the high mountains, and sometimes Kaden would run into him on a ledge or in a narrow defile checking on “his friends” as he called them, splinting branches broken in a hailstorm, or gathering fallen leaves for his bedding. Kaden hadn’t expected to see him here.

“I know these tracks,” Yerrin said. The hall fell to absolute silence as everyone strained to hear the quiet voice. “Or tracks much like them.” He paused, as though gathering his thoughts, then went on. “My friends leave these tracks around my cave.”

“Who are your friends?” Nin asked, voice patient but firm.

“Why, the frost spiders, of course,” Yerrin replied. “They come for the ants, who live in their great dirt mound.”

Kaden tried to make sense of this. He had studied spiders, of course, all kinds of spiders, including the frost spider. He hadn’t been aware that they left tracks.

“These aren’t quite like the footprints my friends leave,” Yerrin added genially. “There are more legs.”

“And the thing is the size of a large dog,” Serkhan interjected, pointing out what Kaden thought was the obvious objection. “Spiders don’t grow to that size.”

“True,” the hermit agreed. “True. Still, the world is wide. I have many friends, but there are many more to make.”

Kaden glanced over at Rampuri Tan. The man was standing in the shadows at the far end of the hall. It was hard to see the look on his face, but his eyes shone bright in the dimness.

“Well,” Scial Nin concluded, once it was clear that Yerrin had nothing more to say. “We cannot let the creature destroy our flocks. We have little chance of following it. That means we will have to lure it to us. Rampuri has suggested that we stake out goats a half mile from the monastery. Several monks will wait in the rocks to watch for some sign of this creature. As for the rest of you, no one is to leave the central square alone. Novices and acolytes are forbidden to leave the monastery at
all
without an accompanying
umial.
”

That got a response. Chalmer Oleki, Kaden’s old teacher, rose from his bench in the first row. He was the oldest of the Shin, half again as old as the abbot, and his voice was reed-thin when he spoke. “This thing has killed goats, yes. It is a problem for us, yes. But do you believe it would come against grown men?”

Scial Nin opened his mouth, but it was Tan who answered, stepping forward from the shadows. Kaden had always found his
umial
menacing, even before being forced to study under the man. In the past, however, something had held that menace in check. Tan had reminded him of a vast, silent slope of snow high on a peak, poised to break loose in avalanche at the first peal of thunder, or like a sword, still and suspended at the height of its arc, held indefinitely by some myserious power. There was nothing strange in Tan’s movement now, nothing more than a simple step forward, and yet Kaden shivered, as though the small movement marked a change, a tip in a balance long held.

“When you know nothing about a creature,” the monk ground out, his voice hard as a rock slide, “expect it has come to kill you.”

13

Once he was actually standing in front of the ruined tavern again, Valyn wasn’t sure what he had hoped to see. Most of the place had disappeared beneath the murky water in a tumble of broken beams and waterlogged walls, and even if there
had
been something to look at, the sun was already dipping toward the horizon—a sullen, red orb—and the light was too poor to see much beyond the skeletal outlines.

The certainty he had felt immediately following his fight in the ring had faded like the afternoon light. It was possible that a leach had been behind the destruction of Manker’s—there were probably more leaches on the Islands than anywhere else in the empire. It was possible that the whole thing had been part of a plot directed at him, at his family, part of an ongoing coup. The shit part of it was that just about anything was
possible.
He needed something concrete, something solid to explore, and a leach’s kenning would leave even less trace than Kettral explosives. That meant turning to people, people who might have noticed something unusual, seen something they didn’t expect.

“Only four made it out,” he said, frowning. Juren, of course, and three others who had clawed their way clear of the wreckage.

“Four out of twelve,” Lin replied with a shrug. “Not bad, considering the whole thing dropped straight into the bay. Better odds than you’d get on the losing side of most battles.” The gash on her cheek had scabbed over, but the indignity of their defeat in the ring still seemed raw and ragged. The Kettral devoted countless hours to tourniquets, splints, medicinal herbs, and bandages. No one said much, however, about the humiliation of having your face ground in the dirt while a fellow soldier thrust a rough hand up between your legs and a few dozen others looked on.

“It wasn’t a battle,” he said, his mind jumping back to the image of Salia, hot, bright blood leaking from the wound in her neck. “The people in there were just drinking. They didn’t sign on.”

“No one ever signs on to get killed.”

“You know what I mean.”

Lin fixed him with a hard stare. “You mean you feel guilty.”

Valyn shrugged. “Sure. Someone comes after me and these poor bastards get crushed? I thought we were supposed to be
protecting
the citizens of Annur.”

Lin spread her hands. “I’d hardly call the scum from Manker’s ‘citizens.’ Most of them would be strung up or cut down within a day if they showed their faces back on the mainland.”

“It doesn’t mean they deserved to die.”

“Spare me the guilt, Valyn. It’s self-indulgent. It’s a waste of time. You didn’t kill them. You tried to save them. You’re noble. Is that what you want to hear? You’re a fucking prince.”

Lin’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes ablaze. Valyn swallowed a sharp retort and began to put a hand on her shoulder instead. She jerked back.

“Let’s find the bastards who did this,” she said curtly, refusing to meet his eyes. “Let’s just find them.”

Valyn started to respond, then, trying to cool his own anger, turned away. Dilapidated buildings hung over the muddy street, paint peeling, roofs sagging, thresholds rotting into the dirt beneath uneven doors. Despite the bright colors, they all looked about ready to give up and tumble into the harbor alongside Manker’s. Maybe he and Lin were imagining the whole thing.
Everything falls apart eventually,
he thought, glancing over once more at his friend.
Maybe the tavern just gave up.

On the other hand, his father had been killed. It was possible the plot went no further than a single disgruntled priest, but Valyn wasn’t ready to believe that just yet. If there were people on the Islands responsible, he wanted them found. He wanted them
dead.

“Juren was one of the ones who made it,” he said, breaking the silence. “Laith says he’s holed up at the Black Boat, drinking himself straight to ’Shael while he waits for his leg to heal.”

“Who’s Juren?”

“That thug Manker used to pay to watch over the place.”

Lin’s face hardened. “The first one to jump clear. The one who refused to help.”

Valyn nodded. “He’s not much good to anyone else now, not with a busted leg.”

“Then he should have plenty of time to talk.”

The common room of the Black Boat was poorly lit and cavernous, far too large for the number of chairs and tables scattered haphazardly around the floor. When Valyn had first arrived on the Islands, the Boat was the most prosperous alehouse on Hook, with wine all the way from Sia, blowsy whores hanging from the balconies, and music every night. In the intervening years, however, the owner had died, one of his sons had stabbed the other in a dispute over the property, and the place had fallen into gradual decline. Only half a dozen or so people were at the tables now, and after looking up, eyes heavy with drink and boredom, they returned to their muttered conversations and games of dice.

Juren sat by the bar, his splinted leg propped on a chair, a half-empty glass of wine beside him, and a half-full jug beside that.

“Mind if we join you?” Valyn asked, pulling up a chair.

The man darted them a bloodshot glare. He opened his mouth as though to suggest that he
did
mind, then took another look at their blacks and the Kettral-issue blades at their belts and thought better of it. He scowled. “Suit yourself.”

“Juren, right?” Lin asked brightly, settling herself on the chair with a grim smile.

The man grunted.

“You used to work for Manker, didn’t you?” she went on. “You were there the day the place collapsed.”

“S’how I got this busted leg,” he replied, waving a hand at the limb. “Manker bit it along with his shithole. Bastard owed me two weeks of pay.”

Valyn shook his head in commiseration. “Bad luck, friend. Bad luck. Listen, we just got paid—why don’t you let us top off that jug for you?”

Juren brightened momentarily, then narrowed his eyes. “What d’you want to drink with me for? I seen you often enough. I even seen you over at Manker’s the day it dropped. You Kettral are usually too good to rub elbows with the likes of me.”

Valyn suppressed a grimace. “Not our decision, friend. Command’s got regulations. Security and all that.”

Juren snorted. “Right. Security ’n’ all that.” Despite having served as Manker’s hired muscle, he didn’t look like he thought all that much of security.

Lin took the newly filled wine jug and topped off the man’s glass before filling two more.

“I remember you now,” she said, nodding as though at the memory. “You made it to the doorway first.”

The man edged back on his stool, putting a little more space between them.

“You made it to the doorway,” she continued, voice deceptively level, “and then, instead of helping get anyone else out … you jumped.”

“What are you, the town constables?” he asked, licking his lips furtively. “I came to Hook t’get away from this shit.”

“By ‘this shit,’” Valyn said, leaning in until he could smell the sour wine on the man’s breath, “I can only assume you mean things like courage and human decency.”

“Don’t lecture me,” Juren snarled, pushing him back with a meaty hand. “I don’t get paid no tall stacks of gold to risk
my
life. I did what I had to do. That’s why I’m alive.”

“Oh no,” Lin said, airily. “We’re not going to lecture you. We’re just going to ask you a few questions.”