The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) (26 page)

The door banged open again, and Jyrre rushed inside. “Captain, sorry, but this couldn’t wait—” She broke off as she saw Derenky. “I told you I had it.”

“We received more information that seemed pertinent,” Derenky said, “and I reached the captain first, despite leaving some time after you did. Perhaps you need some time on the obstacle training course.”

“Sorry, Captain,” Jyrre said again, running a shaking hand through her braided hair. “Thought you’d be at home. Two items.”

“There’s a train, presumably,” Pyvic said, looking from Jyrre to Derenky in irritation. “Will one of you be telling me the rest any time soon?”

“A train crashed on the dwarven railway,” Jyrre said. “It was carrying the elven diplomat you asked for more information on. Witness reports are few as of yet, but at least one places Loch at the scene.”

“All right.” Pyvic drank the rest of his kahva in one big gulp.

“All right?” Derenky coughed. “I’m not sure you understand how bad it is to have a justicar, particularly one who has recently been accused of a crime, be tied to a train wreck, sir.”

“I’ve got an inkling,” Pyvic said.

“Sir, if she
is
involved, we’ll need to act directly in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, given your relationship with arrogant apple, babbling brook, creeping cat,” Derenky said, and blinked as he trailed off into merciful silence.

“Thank you,” Pyvic said to a space in the air midway between Derenky and Ululenia. “Jyrre, you said there were two items.”

She nodded, her mouth drawing tight. “The Empire is marching troops toward the border. One of our scouting units got a warning out before they went dark.”

Pyvic shut his eyes. They had been so close. Loch might already have the book, for all they knew.

“How long do we have?” Desidora asked.

“Not long.” Jyrre grimaced. “They hid in the river until they were close to the border, or we’d have gotten more warning.”

“
In
the river?” Desidora asked.

Jyrre nodded grimly. “The Imperials raised an army of the dead.”

Attendant Shenziencis made her way through the wrecked train cars as the sun rose.

The dwarves were efficient. Already, she could feel their repair train racing down the railway, a little hum of magic vibrating inside those hateful silver tracks. She stepped carefully, avoiding the tracks and any stray bits of silver that had been snapped free when the train jumped the tracks and twisted itself to a stop. In her armor, stolen long ago from one of the ancients’ hunter golems, she was largely safe, but she had not lived as long as she had by trusting such protections casually.

The dwarves would be here in an hour, perhaps less. Shenziencis had fed well, and gained several victims who had gifted her with their words, but she still had a little time.

Up ahead, a dwarf lay pinned under a pile of rubble that had once been part of a wall. His skin was gray, and the armor that marked him as one of their guards was torn, much like her own.

The dagger that Isafesira de Lochenville had thrown had come close enough for her to feel the magic locking the dagger in its form, and the manuscript beneath that form pushing to get out. Shenziencis had seen the surprised joy on the elf’s face as his hand closed around the weapon. She wondered if he had seen her own shock.

She had been
so
close.

The dwarf had been asleep or unconscious, but roused as she approached. “I would appreciate assistance,” he said, his voice weak but still steady.

“What do you wish me to do?” Shenziencis asked.

The dwarf looked surprised to see her ask. He struggled a bit under the rocks. “My legs are pinned.”

Shenziencis shook her head. “I did not ask for an explanation. What do you wish me to do?”

“Help me,” the dwarf snapped, and then added, “please.”

“Help you how?”

“You could . . .” The dwarf paused, thought. Shenziencis leaned a little closer, nodding without words. “Dig up the rubble, I think. Then you could pull me out.”

“I’m sorry,” Shenziencis said, shaking her head, “but that isn’t enough. I think you will stay.”

“Stay? What do you want? What do—” He broke off as her spear came to rest against his throat. “Wait. Stop! Don’t kill me!”

That was better. “If I free you, will you go, and never come back?” She prodded his throat as he nodded. “I need to hear it.”

He swallowed, tears forming in his eyes. “I swear, if you free me, I will go, and never come back.”

“Good.” Shenziencis smiled and stepped away. Then she let the magic well up in her, glowing beneath her armor.
“Dig free.”

The words took hold in him, and his arms moved with frenzied strength, shoving the rocks aside. Shenziencis heard the bones in his hands pop and crack, heard tendons tear with the effort, but he kept moving.

In but a few moments, enough of the rubble was clear for her to give the next command.
“Come out.”

Skin tore from his legs as he wrenched himself free from the rubble. Tears streamed freely down his cheeks. “What are—”

“Stop.”
He froze.
“Come up.”

He jerked himself upright on broken, bleeding legs.

She slit his throat quickly and mercifully with a single slash of her spear, then used the spearpoint to hold him upright until the life left his eyes.

Then, when it was over, she let the magic flow through her again.

“
Come back.”

The eyes jerked open. Shenziencis pulled her spear away, and the dwarf stood, swaying slightly.

She pointed to where the others stood behind her.
“Go,”
she said,
“and then wait.
”

He shuffled off to them. He would be tractable now, stupid but obedient. Alive, he might have tried to obey the letter of her command while twisting the spirit. The smart ones did.

That was why Shenziencis usually killed the smart ones just as soon as they’d given her enough words to be useful. Words like “kill” and “wait” and “come.”

She breathed in deeply, taking in the fresh morning air, and that was when she realized she could still hear breathing.

It was a human woman, lying beside the rubble a little ways away. Her yellow hair was crusted with blood and plastered to the side of her face, and her commoner’s dress was muddy and torn.

She stared at Shenziencis with wide eyes.

“Are you hurt?” Shenziencis asked, walking toward the woman. “Is there something I can do for you?”

The woman did not answer. She got to her feet instead. One of her legs was broken, and she whimpered, but didn’t cry out.

She was trying not to talk.

“Tell me a story,” Shenziencis said, “and I will let you live.”

The woman took a few limping steps back, leaning on the rubble heavily. The look she gave Shenziencis was filled with terror, but there was anger as well. The woman’s jaws were locked together, the muscles below her ears standing out taut.

Shenziencis sighed. “I need the words,” she said. “Without the words, there is only one thing you can do for me. Is that what you want?”

Questions. Even the ones who had some idea about how the magic worked could be caught up by the questions.

Not this one, though. Her breath harsh, she turned and took a few stumbling steps away before her leg gave out, and she fell with a wordless cry.

She cried out again when Shenziencis grabbed hold of her shoulder and pulled her up.

“Enough,” Shenziencis said. “Be silent, then, if you wish.”

Then she unhinged her jaw and brought the poor dear inside.

The woman kicked. Shenziencis did not mind. The prey was right to fight, just as Shenziencis was right to eat. It was nature.

It was also futile. The head slid slowly down her throat, the arms twitching and grabbing at nothing, the legs thrashing. When the head reached the point in the throat where Shenziencis kept her power, the body went still. Shenziencis flexed the muscles of the throat, pulling the rest of the body slowly in, savoring the sweet taste of life still fresh on the skin.

It took a few minutes, and the sensation as new life blossomed inside her core occupied Shenziencis completely. Lost in the pleasant glow, she came back to her senses to find Princess Veiled Lightning’s bodyguard standing over her, Arikayurichi in hand.

Gentle Thunder’s armor was scuffed and dented. The last she had seen of him—before the train section she had been on had pulled ahead—he had been caught in the train wreck. Even an ax forged by the ancients could only protect its wielder so much. His face was hidden behind his golden dragon helmet, but Arikayurichi was lifted high enough for her to guess at his mood.

“You are a monster,” he said. “When I find the princess, I will tell her as much.”

Shenziencis smiled. “You did not object when I killed the Republic justicar earlier. In fact, you hid the information from your princess.”

“That was for our mission,” he said. “We needed to hide the body. He was an enemy, and Veil would . . . not have understood. But these?” He flung his free arm out at the rubble. “These were
innocents!
Their deaths should come only if demanded as a sad necessity of our quest, not simply to slake your thirst for blood!”

“I ended the lives of a few,” she said with a sniff. “What of you, Gentle Thunder? How many died when you destroyed the dwarven contraption?”

“Too many.” He looked now not at her, but at Arikayurichi, still held high in his hands. “Their deaths were unnecessary.”

“Besyn larveth’is,”
said the ax, its enchanted voice calm and reassuring.

“No. We have not protected the innocent.” Gentle Thunder reached up with his free hand and lifted the dragon-faced visor of his helmet. “We have killed too many, and for what? A book?”

“It is not a simply a book,” Shenziencis said. “It holds a message regarding the ancients. A very important one.”

“Kutesosh gajair’is
,” the ax said, more firmly this time.

“Yes.” Gentle Thunder glared at her and brought his free hand to Arikayurichi, moving to a two-handed grip.

Shenziencis made no move to defend herself.

“I wish only to survive,” she said. “I believe I may be of use to you in locating the manuscript.”

“I think not.” Gentle Thunder raised his weapon, stepped forward, and brought it down with a fierce shout.

Shenziencis blinked, then opened her eyes to see the golden blade of Arikayurichi a handbreadth from her face.

She looked past it to Gentle Thunder, whose fierce glare was slowly falling away.

“My apologies,” Shenziencis said, “but it was not you to whom I offered my services.”

Gentle Thunder grimaced, his armor squeaking with strain as he tried with all his mortal might to force Arikayurichi to strike her. Then he stumbled backward, breathing hard.

“Why?” He was looking at his weapon, not her. “You are the Bringer of Order! You have honored the Empire for centuries with your service! Why, damn you?”

“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,”
Arikayurichi said, and it seemed honestly sad as it did.

Then the ax-head snapped back in through the slot left by the raised visor.

The head wrenched back out as Gentle Thunder dropped to his knees, and then chopped back in again. Gentle Thunder’s arms trembled, and Arikayurichi wrenched free again, and then chopped in one final time with a noise that was much softer and wetter than the first two strikes
had been.

When it pulled free a moment later, the movements were clean and practiced. One hand held the ax-head out and wiped its head clean on the grass.

The other snapped the dragon-faced visor shut.

Gentle Thunder, or at least his body, got back to its feet.

“I will endeavor to prove myself worthy of your trust,” Shenziencis said, bowing low. “Now, do you wish me to inform the princess that you will be remaining silent?”

“Why would he do that?”

Shenziencis turned to see Princess Veiled Lightning limping toward them from the direction Gentle Thunder had come. She had fallen from the train well before Gentle Thunder had caused the crash, a victim of the dwarf’s cunning trick, and Shenziencis was pleased to see that she had survived.

“Veil.” Gentle Thunder’s body turned, and Shenziencis raised an eyebrow infinitesimally in a bit of professional surprise. It was not Gentle Thunder’s voice, but if not for the magic in her core that made every living being’s voice an aura for her to read and manipulate, she would never have been able to tell. The intonation was utterly perfect, down to the little hesitations of a man who had cared for a woman since childhood. “I thought you . . . I am pleased to see you were not harmed.”

As he spoke, Shenziencis tapped into the magic at her core, and sent her minions away. It took more strength to command them in silence, and it only worked if she had gotten their words before they died in the first place, but it was necessary. Princess Veiled Lightning would not tolerate the presence of undead servants . . . at least, not those she
knew
were undead.