What she
had
said was exactly as he’d expected: just a typical letter. But he hadn’t known how hearing the pilot read her words would hit him in the chest and lift through him—as if she stood at his side, sly and amused and silently worried. He hadn’t known how glad he would be to have this small, new connection to her.
He missed her. Only three days, yet he missed her.
Distance hadn’t helped. Ariq hadn’t seen or spoken to her, and he’d tried to turn the separation into a wall. But he should have realized how pointless it was. She wasn’t with him, but he only had to close his eyes to see her bare legs against his or the sun shining through her wet shift, the transparent linen clinging to her slender form. He carried the memory of her arms wrapped around him, her sharp smile and her delighted laugh. She wasn’t here, yet he knew that her fingers would be stained with ink, and that staying at the inn when there were so many things outside to see and take notes on was probably killing her.
So it didn’t matter if he built walls now. She was already in. And a letter was a poor substitute for the woman.
But he’d be done here soon. Three days spent making his presence felt in the dens and gathering information on Lord Jochi, and now it was almost over. Soon he’d know who had bought the marauders’ flyers.
He looked out over the bow of the ferry balloon. From this distance, the Rat Den didn’t look changed from when Merkus had overseen the island. Boats crowded the bays and shacks crowded the land. Filth darkened the small lakes.
But he hoped that Lord Jochi was different than Merkus had been. Everything he’d heard since coming to the dens said that Jochi was. Ariq could only know for certain by meeting the man.
“How long?”
“Five minutes,” the pilot said. “We’ll tether in the visitors’ bay. They don’t make you wait to go through.”
“Use the citizens’ bay.” Two of Ariq’s men had already visited the island several times and reported to him, but he wanted to see how the people were treated for himself.
The other man shrugged. “It’s your coin.”
Ariq thanked him and left the wheelhouse. He’d hired the ferry for his personal use and the covered decks were empty but for a few deck hands. His soldiers sat together in the shade, sweat glistening on their brows, their shoulders slumped and legs stretched out. Bartan looked up at his approach and spoke to the others. They all straightened.
The old soldier smiled a bit when Ariq slumped down with them. “No speech for us?” Bartan asked.
He used to give one before they went into battle. He wasn’t their commander now and this wasn’t the rebellion. But they were still fighting for their homes and families.
“May your heart be iron.” Ariq said the same words he’d said hundreds of times before, and that had been said thousands of times before he’d first spoken them. “And your will be steel.”
No more needed to be recited. They all knew the rest. They’d learned it before they’d walked, and many would speak it as they died.
But Tsetseg added, “And remember that winning a battle without shedding a drop of blood is a greater victory than the slaughter of a thousand armies.”
Yes. Ariq had said that before, too. But it hadn’t been passed down from other commanders and soldiers. His mother had told him that when he’d been a boy. Years had passed before he’d understood it.
Blood
would
be shed today. But Ariq would consider it a victory if none of the blood was human.
“Keep your weapons holstered,” he told them.
***
Despite the pilot’s warning, they didn’t have to wait. Lord Jochi arrived at the docks as their ferry did. The den lord must have had someone watching Ariq and reporting his movements, preparing for his arrival.
Ariq would have done the same. It was why he’d sent Jeong-hak and Vasili to the island ahead of his visit. Ariq liked to make his own preparations before engaging in battle—even a bloodless one.
“Any change?” he asked quietly.
Jeong-hak looked to the gates, where a line of incoming passengers waited to have the money in their purses counted. More passengers were searched before they boarded departing ferries. The lines were orderly, the officials efficient—but that could be for show.
“It’s the same,” Jeong-hak said. “Coins counted, but none taken, and if they’re leaving to work they have to report their earnings when they return.”
“And Jochi?” he asked Vasili.
The gunner’s blond eyebrows jerked up and down in the big man’s version of a laugh. “He gussied himself up. He didn’t wear anything as fancy yesterday, or the day before.”
Hoping to make a good impression—if an odd one. Though he’d originally come from the heart of the Golden Empire, just as Ariq had, Jochi didn’t wear a topknot. He’d cut his hair short and grown a beard, trimmed to a point beneath his chin. He wore a tunic, but had topped it with an embroidered waistcoat, and his trousers were in the western style, stiff and tight. Those must be damned hot on a day like this. Jochi’s balls were probably sweltering in them—but even in the winter, Ariq’s visit might have had him sweating.
He was younger than Ariq had remembered. No more than a few years past twenty.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t rule over a den, or do it well. Children became adults quickly in the dens—and in the rebellion. At the same age, Ariq had been commanding armies.
He’d also been making mistakes. By all accounts, Jochi was making his own.
“So you are finally here!” The den lord’s smile was welcoming, if thin. “For three days, I have heard nothing but ‘the Kraken has come.’ That you will ask me about the silver flyers and show me photographs of dead men, and tell me that the empress will destroy us all. So we rats are the last?”
“The twins pointed to you,” Ariq told him. “So I expected to find answers elsewhere.”
A lie. Ariq knew the twins had spoken the truth. But it would allow Jochi to save face. Ariq knew a young man’s pride. If that was damaged, so would any hope of resolving this peacefully.
“Of course the twins would.” Jochi shook his head and laughed, then clasped Ariq’s forearm in greeting. “And you are welcome here, whether I have answers or not.”
The other man’s grip was strong, but Ariq saw the uneasy moment when Jochi realized that Ariq could have crushed him. Still, he didn’t flinch or pull away. He looked to Ariq’s companions. His smile froze when he spotted Vasili—as if recognizing the big man. He probably did. The gunner was difficult to overlook. But if the den lord was dismayed by the realization that Ariq had been watching him, he didn’t show it.
“Come then,” he said. “I will tell you what I can, and show you the stadium.”
That was bold. Ariq had expected that Jochi would direct him away from the arena. He started down the walk with him, the boards well-worn beneath his feet. This route had seen heavy traffic. Ahead, the wooden stadium rose like a giant tortoise over the twigs of nearby buildings. “Your games have been all that I’ve heard about from the other den lords. Your games and your taxes.”
Some had been coy and only hinted at it, like the twins. Others had told him directly. Jochi had been staging fights in his stadium, but not just between men or machines. He’d brought in death itself—and with it, a paying audience from the other dens.
“I can imagine what they’ve said. They haven’t liked the changes I’ve made.” Jochi gestured to the lines of passengers at the gates. “I don’t tax my people. I don’t ask for tribute. I only ask that they spend what they earn here.”
Keeping the money local instead of watching it bleed off the island. But that wouldn’t be why the other den lords didn’t like it. “And in the other dens, people are asking why their taxes are so high.”
“They do. If you’d come this morning, you wouldn’t have found any laborers left on the docks. Those bastards at the other dens come here looking for workers, and they pay them less—because my people are hungrier.” Anger hardened his voice as he spoke. His face dark, he glanced at Ariq again. “They
were
hungrier. I don’t take any of what they earn, so my people can live on what little they get. The games bring in the rest, for those that can’t work.”
Ariq nodded. Here was the poverty that Zenobia had expected, threadbare clothes and ramshackle homes that only seemed to stand with the support of the other shacks crowded next to them. But unlike his last visit, he didn’t see squalor. The stench of shit and decay hadn’t slapped him when he’d stepped onto the docks. And instead of abject misery when the people looked at the den lord, they regarded Jochi with wary hope, and there were not so many hollow cheeks and empty eyes.
“It is changed from when Merkus stood in your place,” Ariq said.
“Merkus was a drunken pig on human legs.” Jochi spoke matter-of-factly. Either his anger had ebbed or he’d controlled it. “And he rode this den into the ground—starting when he lost his port contracts with the rebellion. But I’m bringing it back.”
Unless he ruined it all before he could. “Then let’s see your arena—”
“Ariq Noyan!”
Frowning, Ariq looked back—then up. The shout had come from a silver flyer approaching the docks. Unease clutched his chest. That was one of the marauders’ flyers he’d brought from his town. Meeng had one, but he’d remained outside the dens. The other flyer had been stored with the mountain walkers at the inn—and Meeng wasn’t piloting this one. Instead Ariq recognized one of Dayir Sunid’s guards. When Ariq had left the inn that morning, the guard had been standing at the entrance.
A message. An urgent one, if Dayir was using the flyer to deliver it.
Zenobia.
Was she all right? Ariq’s heart drummed as he strode forward and waved the guard in.
He shouldn’t have left her. Dregs and hell. The inn should have been safe. Dayir was a good man, a good soldier. But Ariq should have kept her beside him.
He didn’t wait for the man to land. The flyer hovered overhead, the propellers blasting heated air into his face. He shouted up to the guard. “What is it?”
A note fluttered in his gloved hand. Ariq snatched it and read the message as the flyer settled onto the boards.
No danger. Zenobia had asked Dayir to hire an airship.
He hadn’t thought she would. Not until Cooper was ready to go. Ariq hadn’t misread her guilt over the man’s injuries. If she had a choice, Zenobia wouldn’t leave the mercenaries behind.
She must feel that her time was running out—and that she had to deliver those letters soon.
All right, then. All right. His business here was almost done, anyway.
“Make the arrangements,” he told the guard. “But the airship doesn’t leave until I’m on it.”
The man nodded. Ariq stepped back. The engine wound to a buzzing whine before the flyer lifted off the ground.
Jochi watched it go, then looked down as Ariq joined him. “Is everything well?”
No. Zenobia would have left without seeing him again.
But Ariq only said, “You’ve seen that flyer before.”
The den lord’s expression flattened. “I have.”
“Who bought it from you?”
Jochi shook his head.
“You don’t know?” Ariq didn’t believe it.
“I won’t say.” Jochi’s gaze was steady. “My people have lost enough, and I’ve fought for everything I’ve given back to them. I won’t risk that by giving you a name.”
He didn’t need to. He’d already told Ariq enough.
Jochi hadn’t bowed beneath the pressure from the other den lords to tax his people—even though his refusal had probably put a price on his head. And he would have heard by now that Ariq had given the twins a fortune in return for information. He must know Ariq would do the same now. But there was one person who could give the Rat Den more than Ariq could offer: Ghazan Bator. A general for the rebellion, he could renew the port contracts that would allow Jochi to broker smuggled technology from the Golden Empire. That wasn’t just worth the money to Jochi. It would give the Rat Den back something they’d lost under Merkus.
Or so the young man thought. But he didn’t know Ghazan Bator as well as Ariq did.
Feeling suddenly tired, he gestured that they continue on toward the arena. Ariq only wanted to return to Zenobia’s side. Even if the marauders weren’t rebels themselves, the rebellion was responsible for the attacks—and the letters in her pack might as well have painted a target on her back.
He’d stop them. He’d stop her. But first, he had to stop Jochi.
As if disbelieving that Ariq had finished his questions, Jochi watched him warily for a long moment, then looked to Ariq’s soldiers before starting along the boarded walk.
“You should come tonight,” he said, then added dryly, “I’ve heard that all of the den lords intend to see the games. Even the twins.”
Of course they would. They hoped to watch Ariq destroy him.
Ariq didn’t intend to do it in front of an audience. “They will be disappointed.”
“I hope so.” With a shrug, Jochi seemed to discard thoughts of the den lords. A grin made him look even younger than he already did. “Do you still wrestle? We could put you in the arena and make a fortune.”