Steel Dominance (31 page)

That idea ran shivering pangs through him and clogged his throat.

No. Can’t afford weakness
. He opened and closed his fists and allowed a little anger to leak in. His heartbeat thudded louder but slowed, and the room brightened.
Wait. Listen. Observe.

So he simply kept his eyes open and his mouth shut as they walked, and absorbed everything that might help. Everything. There had to be a way out of this.

When he stepped out onto the path that led to the Garden of Audiences, even he was taken aback. All the way, for as far as he could see, the path was lined by soldiers and palace guards. More guards closed in behind him. The footbridge above the waterfall held guards spaced every yard. None looked directly at him. His palms grew sweaty. But he said nothing, only listened to the sound of his bare feet, the boots on the ground, the jingle of weaponry.

As Dankyo took the last few steps up to the audience area, the emperor-bey slowly appeared, like a creature arising from the depths. He sat as if he were merely a man at a tavern—legs askew, one draped over the top of the arm rest of the throne. Yet his clothes were those of state, many-layered, with an embroidered vest, a rich red coat, and dark trousers. Above him hung the white dome roof, and the white colonnade supports stood either side, beyond the walls of men.

These men watched him. Their swords were bared, point uppermost, with the blades resting on their shoulders. Those with FREN rifles had them unslung and ready to fire. He had zero chance of surviving here, if they attacked.

The copy of the Clockwork Warrior stood silent behind a huge cage that reached to the top of his head. Then four of the guards moved aside and revealed her.

He faltered and shut his eyes a moment.
Deal with it. This is reality.

Sofia lay naked on her back, strapped with her hands above her head to a bench that curved upward then down again in an arc, so her legs and arms were lower than her torso. A bit gag was set between her teeth. Her eyes tracked his progress. Her hand signal was subtle yet clear.
I’m okay
. It did nothing to reassure him, especially since he could see the marks of tears on her face.

Signaling back might be noticed. He wrestled his breathing and heart down to something less than frantic and said nothing. But his nod and smile to her held oceans of thoughts.
Be safe. Hold on. I am here. I am coming to fix this, somehow. Somehow.

If there was a way out, it must lie within negotiation.

Had Sofia’s solving of the puzzle somehow insulted the monarch? Had she failed to solve it? What had changed? Something had gone wrong. He could fix it once he knew the cause. Surely, he could? Except the humiliation they’d already dealt to Sofia was so great something dreadful must have occurred.

Be calm.

The ground was warm under his feet. His fingers were cold. When he was six yards from the emperor-bey, they halted him with a hand on his arm, then made him kneel and bow his head.

“Greetings, yet again, Dankyo of House Kevonis. I wish this were under happier circumstances.”

They let him raise his head. He swallowed on his dry throat.

“What may I help Your Serenity with?” He glanced at Sofia, then wrenched his gaze back. “I can see that something has occurred.”

“Indeed, it has.”

“May I ask what this might be?”

He wanted to shut his eyes but couldn’t. The answer was so important. Behind the emperor-bey seemed bright as the sun—his figure limned in light, pulsing. Dankyo waited. Beneath his palms that lay flat on the ground, grit pressed on his skin. The in-and-out hush of air in his lungs sounded as loud as the wash of waves on a beach.

The bound body of his love, of Sofia, loomed at the edges of his watering vision.

“What happened occurred many years ago. You have upset someone who is precious to me. And so, I must hand you over to Xiang.”

Xiang?

The name was so impossible he blanked. Yes, there once was a Xiang, but this could not be her.

To the left of the throne, the woman warrior in black armor and clothes but no helmet strolled forward. Her gait was as fluid as that of a leopard and as deadly. Her lustrous black hair was neatly trimmed to shoulder length. He recognized the movements of a skilled soldier, of a fighter…of someone ever alert and so practiced in the ways of war that they never shed their skin of awareness.

She stopped when only a yard in front of the emperor-bey—five yards from him—too far away for him to touch her without being shot, or skewered, or simply wrestled to the earth by ten guards. With her feet shoulder-width apart, she stood staring at him, like a creature behind bars at a zoo, palpably straining to come closer. Yet her feet didn’t move.

“Do you know me?” she asked.

“No.” It was the truth. Though the name…the name made him wonder. How? It was impossible for this to be his Xiang, from all those years ago. Dead Xiang. And yet there was something about her that seemed familiar.

“You do. You do know me. You left me in the snow, to die.” Her face was impassive. “Now do you know me?”

It couldn’t be. “No. That’s impossible. You’re dead.” But, she was here, now, before him.
All these years of nightmares, and she’s not dead? How?
His heart pounded hard enough to rock his chest. “You weren’t buried?”

“I was. I was rescued. I’m not dead. I am Xiang!” She glared. “I am stronger, older, wiser. And your match.” Her voice rose in pitch. “I am alive, and I hate you enough to wait a thousand years to rip out your guts and use them for lamp decorations!” Spit flew.

Well. That was a curious way to kill someone.

Explaining would mean nothing to her, yet he couldn’t stop. He needed to say this.

“I couldn’t return. I thought you’d died, and there was no time. The border guards pursued us. We were friends. Good friends. Why…” He spread his hands.

“You killed that friend. Dead!”

He let the silence mature. Saying more might set her off. Clearly she was unstable. And Sofia was in her grasp.

When the flush faded from Xiang’s face, he spoke quietly. “Then it’s me you want. I offer myself. Free Sofia, and I’m yours.”

This time Xiang did move forward, even if only by an inch. “I. Have. You. Already.” She grinned. “I want to see you crawl. I want to show the world what you are truly made of.”

The emperor-bey flapped his hand. “Get on with it, Xiang. I grow tired of this.”

She half turned. “Of course, Your Serenity.” With her naked sword, she pointed at Dankyo. “Choices. Two. The first choice is to fight me and my men. Win and you go free, die and she dies also. The second choice. Leave your woman here. She goes to the emperor-bey, and you go free.”

What?
He blinked.

“Yes.” She lowered her sword. “You walk away and go free.” The glitter in her eyes, the little triumph in the quirk of her mouth—she was gloating.

Die or desert Sofia? He remembered the corridor of men behind him, remembered the hate for him that showed in Xiang’s voice, in her manner. She wouldn’t let him go free. She meant to humiliate him, then kill him anyway.

A little movement distracted him. Sofia was signaling.
Go. Go. Come back.

She thinks I can return to rescue her. But can I?

After one last desperate look at her pleading eyes, he refused to look again. Logic. He needed that and not raw emotion.

He sat back on his heels and contemplated death. He couldn’t win with the first choice. Maybe not with the second either—for surely Xiang had something tricky in mind.

Tricks had a way of turning and biting you in the rear end, hard. He’d seen the complex battle plans go awry when the simple ones won the day. Whatever she intended, it wasn’t good. The first was suicide. But could he leave Sofia?

Eyes closed, head bowed, he inhaled a long, slow breath, smelled the scent of flowers, heard the buzz and click of insects, the subtle scrape of tumbling leaves, and the tick of distant clockwork.

Win however you can. Be simple. Be bold. Take the world by the throat and make it yours. No compassion for the enemy. None.

He exhaled.

Walk away from my love?
The decision drove a spike of pain through his middle.

“Your choice?” Xiang already smiled, just a little.

Forgive me, my lady
. “I will go.”

“And leave your lady with us. As I thought. You show your true self. You always choose yourself over your beloved. You are a weak man. A disgusting man.”

He didn’t reply. Sorrow for Xiang, and pity, cloaked his thoughts. Perhaps she intended to stir him to anger. His anger was there, but deep. He’d let it loose when he could use it.

Her mouth screwed up. Her upper lip curled in disdain. “Pah! Weakling. You will watch the ring being applied to her before I let you leave.” Xiang nodded curtly to the soldiers, and they gestured to someone on a lower level. A man in flowing navy robes and black stovepipe trousers walked solemnly up some side steps carrying a silver tray. Instruments glinted in the sunlight.

It dawned on him. To enter the harem, she would need the clitoral ring. Cold prickled along his skin. He clenched his fists until his muscles ached, then made himself look. Sofia was already watching him. Their gazes locked.

Whatever else happened to her, he would not think on it. She needed his strength, and he knelt there, a mere eight yards away, fists on his thighs. He did not release her from his rigid stare until something clicked down there between her legs, and she gasped around the gag, her face taut with pain.
Don’t look
. Sofia had shut her eyes. There was blood.

He hissed through his teeth.

God in heaven, they would pay for this. Xiang would pay. He’d come back from the dead if he had to, to rescue his Sofia and deliver retribution.

“Now, you may leave.” Xiang pointed over his shoulder.

One second, two… He pushed off, rose quietly to his feet, and turned. The twin lines of men waited there. In their hands were knives, and the lines went on forever. Below, on the next level, the helmeted heads bobbed and gleamed into the distance, perhaps all the way across the garden pathways to the walls.

“You will walk the gauntlet of a million knives.”

He breathed his words. “I’ve never heard of that one.”

“No. Because I invented it. Go, or we kill you where you stand. Make it to the wall, and you are free. Strike back, and they kill you where you stand.”

Well, he wouldn’t stand, then. The sob behind him said Sofia had heard and knew. There was no point in arguing.
Go. Move. Get this done. Pain is relative. It means nothing.

If only he believed that.

With the first step, he was already thinking and crossing out possibilities. Only one exit might be close enough. Could he reach it alive? The first soldier hefted his knife and tossed it, caught it by the hilt.

Don’t hit back. Do not.

The man struck. The tip of the knife ran down his chest like an ember. He hissed. A stripe of pain blossomed for a second. Knives flashed, and the next hit, and the next, and the next. His clothes shredded, he stepped faster, strode, made them miss sometimes, made them sink the blow too deep on others. Strips of flesh flapped loose. Warm blood meandered and sprayed from the wounds. By the time he reached the waterfall bridge, he was staggering. The men jeered and cried insults, spit as they added another cut to his body.

When he looked down, he saw blood in his footprints, and he wore red. The white was long gone. A whistle and catch in his breathing, where each subsequent breath seemed harder to take, alerted him to the worst wound. He’d not felt the knife go in, penetrate deeper than the rest. His chest had been punctured, all the way to his lungs. Whether filling up with leaking blood or air inside, it made little difference. He’d die soon. His lungs would stop working, and he’d die.

He put his hand to that wound and pressed. Delay death. It wouldn’t take him easily.

I have to come back!

Now the tears began. For a man to cry…it was wrong. But he was failing, and it wasn’t himself who he cried for, it was his beautiful lady who waited for him. He’d wanted to win, to come back…but he was dying.

Two more steps, and he’d reach the bridge. Two more steps.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Twenty yards down to the water. Couldn’t see it past the soldiers, but he heard it, smelled the water, saw the rise of fine spray.

Dankyo staggered sideways, making the next blow miss. They fended him off, laughing. The man he picked was taller but slight. A lunge back the other way, and he hit below the center of gravity, at the same time as he gripped the man’s wrist and lifted him. They smacked into the rail as one, and went over. A twist, and he freed the knife from the man’s hand. Sharp and slippery as a fish darting, he slid it into the soldier’s throat. Blood spurted.

Air whipped past. He took a breath as they fell. The man’s carotid bled nicely.

If he wasn’t dead, his opponent was half-dead when they hit the water. As he entered feetfirst and speared down deep, Dankyo felt, then heard, the bitter snap of his own ribs. The shouts from above shut off. His arms flailed. Blood swirled in the water. The man was gone, somewhere below. Bubbles spun. The roar of the waterfall was distant, and the water lanced at him in fiery licks where it washed along and into his wounds.
The piercing one
. He placed his hand on it as the surge swept him along, tumbling.

Nothing to do but be taken by the force.

Into a darkened tunnel. Still holding in that air…down, down. Through the tunnel, twisting, torn, cold and fire. Heat and dark. And it spit him out into the vast night-blackened river. The Bosporus. He gasped in a breath. He was beyond the palace walls and still dying, still bleeding. Too weak to swim.

On his last desperate lunge for the surface, he found a corpse. A bloated corpse of dog or sheep, long gone, long dead. It saved him, kept him afloat. The ironclad he drifted past showed its blank steel face to him. He bled some more. Cold sank in, like the claws of a giant yet patient beast. He shivered and clung to the corpse. It stank, but it was warmer than the water. And his chest, plastered against its sloppy, putrid flesh, had stopped sucking in air through the wound. Something to be thankful for.