Savage Bounty Read online

  “I am not Edger. He taught me much. He prepared me as well as he could in the time he had. But I am not him. I will use his lessons to guide the Planning Cadre as best I can, in the direction I believe is best for the people we serve. Whether that is enough… we will all see in time.”

  Dyeawan pauses, aware she’s revealing too much of her interior thoughts about what is left in Edger’s wake. These words are meant to commemorate and eulogize the dead.

  “Edger believed in function, not legacy. He didn’t want his name known, or his story told. He knew the power of such stories; stories that become legends, and legends that become myth. I will not mythologize him or his life or his impact now. He served his function, and he served it perhaps better than even he could have hoped. Now that function has come to an end. And so has he. I like to think… he would find it fitting.”

  Dyeawan returns the cone to Mister Quan. No one speaks, but the mood of the crowd seems to her to be one of satisfaction, at least with her eulogy.

  She stares across the atoll at Nia in particular. The lone planner meets her gaze. More than anything else, and instead of the suspicion or even resentment Dyeawan might have expected, she reads curiosity in the woman’s expression.

  Mister Quan hikes the hem of his robes and carefully treads down to the edge of the interior rocks. He kneels above the water and removes a small pouch from his belt. He loosens the strings of the pouch and empties its contents, a pale and grainy powder, into the nearest floating lantern.

  The reaction is energetic. The lantern’s color darkens and the light it casts swells until the small vessel bursts. The paper is incinerated and colorful flame spits forth in every direction. The lanterns closest to it catch fire and quickly combust.

  That single lantern coming aflame creates a domino effect spreading across the water inside the atoll. Tendrils of rainbow fire reach out from each affected lantern and touch all those within a few feet. The chain reaction continues until the lanterns swaying at the edges of the funeral pyre are touched.

  As they explode, so too is the pyre lit ablaze. The silken white sheet covering Edger’s body is quickly consumed.

  Stationed at his wheel, Matei begins turning it by its dimpled iron spokes. There are heavy chains running through the rock and beneath the waves linking to the bottom of the pyre. As those chains retract, the fiery heap is slowly drawn underwater.

  Dyeawan feels her hands begin to tremble. Watching Edger’s body being lowered beneath the surface of the water sparks her recall, and images of the horrors she saw before her last conversation with Edger at the God Rung fill her head.

  Since that day, her thoughts have stayed with the bodies that formerly occupied the bottom of the bay; bodies belonging to the disabled people of Crache liquidated on Edger’s orders. Dyeawan sees them every night. She’s barely been able to sleep since Edger showed her what lay beneath the God Rung, hoping she would understand the necessity of his actions and be willing to carry them forward in his stead.

  Edger believed there was no meaningful or useful place in Crachian society for those people. He believed they were a drain on Crachian resources the state could ill afford. The few of them he took into the Cadre to perform menial tasks, like Dyeawan, were his paltry way of assuaging what conscience he had left. Dyeawan knows that now.

  On her orders, Oisin and the Protectorate Ministry have moved in secret all of the remains to the deepest part of the island forest. The remains were separated and each soul was put to rest in the ground, in their own grave. The graves cannot be marked, and the names of the dead were not recorded, but Dyeawan instructed Oisin to bury each person with a Planning Cadre medallion.

  It doesn’t mean much, she supposes, but Dyeawan feels that at the very least the Cadre should claim those bodies in some way.

  The click of that large iron wheel on the other side of the atoll breaks Dyeawan from her dark reveries.

  As the pyre is finally sucked under, the blaze is extinguished, until all that’s left of Edger is a phantom made of black smoke, dancing eerily atop the water.

  THE KNIFE BEFORE

  POLISHED STEEL DRAWS LIGHT THE way the earth pulls a falling body down to meet its embrace. Even in a darkened room, the scantest scrap of light will cause the flat of a blade to shine like the sun. Dull steel is an assassin’s best friend, and the truly masterful killers coat their blades in the blackest metal powder if the knife is their preferred method of dispatching a victim.

  However, if one’s goal is to stab a sleeping body in the dark with a polished steel dagger, the safest technique is to keep its blade sheathed until the last possible moment before the strike.

  These are lessons Crachian assassins have apparently never learned, and that gap in their murder education is the only reason Evie is still alive at this moment.

  Oddly, that is at the forefront of her mind as she grapples with the shit-smelling man currently attempting to drive the tip of his very shiny blade through the ripe center of her throat.

  Evie isn’t thinking about dying in the commandeered bed of a Skrain captain, or her army attempting to lay siege to the Tenth City in the morning without her there to lead them. She doesn’t see the faces of those she’ll leave behind.

  Instead, she’s silently marveling at how the littlest details often have far-rippling results on the world around them.

  She has long trained herself to be a light sleeper. It’s a necessary skill for a bodyguard. It doesn’t take much to wake Evie, even during the latest hour of the evening. It served her well when her assassin made his entrance. He managed to keep the door from creaking as he opened it, and he had the wits to allow just enough space for him to slip through. The light from the hallway sconce that reflected off the polished blade in his hand just happened to flicker over her closed eyelid.

  She didn’t wake with a start. Her eyes fluttered open and she was immediately aware of the malevolent presence attempting to creep silently across the floor. Evie had stayed still. Her sword was sheathed and resting on the floor just under her side of the small bed. She had to decide if it was worth going for, if she could retrieve it and free it from its scabbard in time for the blade to be of any use to her.

  The alternatives, at least the ones she could come up with in a rush, seemed far bleaker.

  Evie made her move, whipping the blanket from her body and rolling over to reach under the bed. Her assassin’s reaction had been more finely tuned than his knife-handling skills, however. He took one long step forward and leaped over the foot of the bed with surprising speed and grace for a very large man. She only had time to roll onto her back and raise her knees to her chest before the bulk of the man’s weight landed atop her. She also managed to brace her neck and face with her forearms, blocking his wrists as he brought the dagger down with both hands.

  She can’t see very much of his face in the dark, and what features she can discern aren’t terribly attractive, but Evie can make out the runes raised just beneath his flesh. She can’t know whether he’s an actual Savage, or whether the Skrain or Protectorate Ministry have painted one of their agents to resemble a man who has had a blood coin forced down his gullet.

  She’s already called out for Bam several times to no avail, which means her hound dog–faced self-appointed protector is either absent from his post, or he’s already dead. Evie knows she can’t afford to dwell on that now. She also knows there’s no point in cursing the fact Sirach, who has shared her bed virtually every night since they overran the border and seized the Skrain barracks, is currently out on a final stealthy reconnaissance mission.

  She remains calm even as they struggle, reminding herself to breathe steadily in through her nose and then out through her mouth. Panic is not an option. Panic saps one’s strength as quickly as it drains the will and overcomes the wits.

  Still, the man is incredibly strong and Evie can already feel her arms weakening. She digs what nails she has into his wrists, and her assassin grimaces and growls in pain. She contort
s her body beneath him so that she can raise a leg and drape it over the top of the arms pressing the knife down on her. She angles the hard bone within her shin beneath the attacker’s chin and digs it against his neck, then straightens her body as much as she can with all her remaining strength. The pressure forces her would-be killer back in order for him to continue freely drawing breath, mitigating his strength advantage and easing the advance of the blade for just a bit, at least.

  Evie begins rocking from side to side, trying to unbalance him, but his mass upon her is too much to allow her to build any real momentum. She gives up on the tactic and frees one hand to reach for his face, hoping to dig her thumb or even forefinger into one of his eyes. His arms are now fully extended and his reach far exceeds her own, putting his face beyond her grasp. She briefly considers relaxing her body to allow him to press toward her again, but decides she’ll probably be overwhelmed before she can inflict any significant damage.

  She desperately casts her gaze about. There’s nothing within arm’s reach of her except pillows stuffed with chicken feathers.

  It’s in this moment that Evie realizes she’s going to die.

  He is simply too big and too strong. She has delayed the inevitable as long as possible, and it has taken all of her skill and experience and will to accomplish that feat.

  Evie thinks about Stirba, the woman who completed Ashana’s training after she left Gen Stalbraid—when Evie thinks about herself before joining the Savage Legion, she’s begun to consider Ashana as another person entirely. Stirba taught Ashana how to be effective in combat as a woman dealing with men who are far larger and possess superior strength. She instructed her how to bleed them out with a knife in seconds, as well as how to evade, to attack and retreat, hit and run, and utilize her surroundings, bashing them against the hardest surface or with the heaviest object available.

  Once, Ashana asked the older warrior what happens when one can’t evade, retreat, or run, and when one doesn’t have an edged or blunt instrument handy. And what happens when one is pinned down by someone twice their size.

  You lose, Stirba had told her without sympathy.

  These words echo in Evie’s head as her arms are on the verge of collapse. She closes her eyes, unwilling to watch her blood spray her assassin’s ugly face before the darkness takes her. Evie doesn’t want that image to be the last thing she sees.

  She doesn’t even feel the tip of the blade pierce her throat. There is the sound of what must be a metal dagger hilt colliding with flesh, and she feels the warmth and the wet against her neck and face as blood is released. There is no pain. Her assassin’s arms relax and she can only assume he’s plunged the blade of the dagger enough to his satisfaction. Evie waits for death to claim her mind and the thoughts and memories to stop.

  After several moments longer and still drawing breath, Evie begins entertaining the idea she hasn’t actually been stabbed.

  She opens her eyes to find her assassin newly backlit. It’s enough for her to recognize that his head is hanging limply to one side on a neck that appears to have had the air let out of it. His head is also horribly misshapen and obviously the source of the blood she’s now wearing.

  The man slopes to his right and Evie sees Bam standing over them and her bed, holding his mallet. A large portion of the assassin’s skull is splattered on the flat of the mallet’s hammerhead.

  Bam grabs the neck he’s snapped and in one easy motion pulls the man’s corpse off Evie and over the foot of the bed.

  Having so much weight lifted so suddenly is jarring for Evie, but she’s also relieved. She reaches up with hands that feel like they’ve had the life sucked from them and wipes the blood away from her face. A moment later, she sits up and slides her legs under her, kneeling on the bed. The door to the quarters is open and the light from the hall is now filling the room.

  Bam shakes the gore from his favored weapon and upends it, leaning the mallet against the foot of the bed.

  “Sorry, Evie,” Bam says, still holding the would-be-killer’s body by the scruff of his neck, as if the man were a mad dog he just put down.

  Evie’s breath is shallow and uneven, and she doesn’t yet have the words to answer. She can only shake her head to reassure Bam she’s not angry with him and that this isn’t his fault.

  Bam pats his bulging stomach, which Evie knows is as solid as coiled steel.

  “Think that bear meat I ate had turned,” he explains. “I hadta go… y’know…”

  “Oh. That’s… that’s fine, Bam. Thank you for coming back. You saved my life.”

  Evie notices Bam is staring at the floor between them, trying very hard not to look at her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks. “I told you, it’s all right. I’m not angry. You saved me.”

  Bam doesn’t answer; he only shifts his weight from one booted foot to the other uncomfortably, still not looking up at her.

  Then Evie remembers she’s completely naked.

  “Oh.”

  Bam reaches out and snatches up the blanket she cast aside with his free hand. He offers it to her, eyes still affixed to the floor.

  Evie takes it and wraps it around herself. “Maybe from now on, when it comes to bear for supper, you should skip eating the liver,” she suggests.

  Bam immediately frowns, lowering his head even more so the stringy tendrils of his hair hide his face.

  “I like the liver,” he mutters.

  Despite having just come within an inch of having her throat opened, Evie begins to laugh.

  She’s still doing so when the rest of the Elder Company come pouring through the open door, armed to their teeth, which Evie has also seen them use as weapons in several battles.

  Mother Manai, the squat, weathered woman twenty years Evie’s senior, and who has proved to be invaluable to the budding general as both an advisor and a soldier, leads the charge. Lariat, the boisterous barrel-torsoed pugilist, and Diggs, the most inscrutable member of the group, flank her.

  “You all right, little sparrow?” Lariat asks.

  Mother Manai prods the mustached man in his ample gut with the barest tips of the forked blade that substitutes for her left hand.

  “Dammit, woman!” he yowls.

  “She’s your general,” Mother Manai says in a reprimanding voice.

  “It’s all right, Mother,” Evie tells her. “And I’m fine.”

  Mother Manai cocks her head as she stares at Bam, still gripping the dead flesh of the assassin’s neck.

  “You planning to take him home with you?” she asks.

  Bam just stares back at her and shrugs.

  “Bam, you can drop him,” Evie assures the hulking Savage.

  He does as bidden, and the other Elder Company members gather around the corpse.

  “Those runes painted on?” Lariat asks.

  Mother Manai licks her thumb and rubs the tip against the dead man’s cheek without hesitation.

  “No,” she concludes. “He’s got a blood coin in ’im.”

  Lariat kicks the corpse in the ribs, breaking several of them.

  “Traitorous dung pile.”

  Diggs is less moved. “I’m sure they’re telling the rest of the Savage Legion the same thing about us.”

  He’s the third assassin Evie’s forces have rooted out since they established their base camp, but he’s the first one to make it this far.

  “They’re gettin’ desperate,” Lariat says.

  “How’d he get in the barracks?” Mother Manai demands of the rest of them.

  “It’s getting harder to sort through newcomers,” Diggs explains, unruffled by her tone. “Word’s spreading. We’ve got runaway Savages, defecting Gen servants, refugees, and all manner of put-upon folk wanting to join the fight.”

  Evie nods. “Good. We’ll need them.”

  “And what of the others like this one?” Mother says, persisting. “They only have to get lucky once, you know.”

  Evie is unconcerned. “I daresay they’ve m
issed their last chance before the morning.”

  “What about after tomorrow?”

  “It may not matter after tomorrow, Mother,” Evie says.

  Those words land heavily upon them all.

  “Let our general rest now,” Diggs urges the rest of the Elder Company.

  Evie looks up at him. She is still uncertain about this man. He says and does all the right things, but Diggs always seems to be removed from the others. Mother Manai, Lariat, and Bam are all possessed of great passion and emotion, existing fully in every moment. Diggs, on the other hand, never seems to let any particular moment touch the whole of who he is.

  They file out of the room, Bam leaning down to snatch the dead assassin by his collar and drag the body away.

  Mother Manai lingers.

  “What is it, Mother?” Evie asks gently.

  “I don’t like hearing you talk that way.”

  “Which way is that?”

  “Like we’re going to lose tomorrow, or at the very least like you won’t be there to see it even if we do.”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t discourage the others.”

  Mother Manai waves her forked appendage and shakes her head in annoyance.

  “I don’t care about that. They’ll fight with everything they’ve got even if you tell them you’re marching them to certain death. I don’t want those thoughts rattling around in your head, that’s all.”

  “Vanquishing thoughts is much more difficult than vanquishing an assassin.”

  Mother frowns with every line in her face. “Are you retiring from the business of revolution to be a poet?”

  Evie smiles, swelling with affection and respect for the older woman.

  “Perhaps the truth just sounds better,” she replies.

  Mother Manai sighs, and it sounds more like a predator rumbling in the darkness. She reaches up with her remaining hand and places it gently against Evie’s cheek.