The Grace of Kings (43 page)

“Aren't you glad you came with me, lad?” he shouted when he saw that Dafiro was looking back.

Dafiro nodded and bit his tongue again to be sure he was not dreaming.

They were riding on the back of a cruben, and around and behind them, twenty other crubens swam along. Duke Garu's force was sailing up to the Amu Strait on the backs of the sovereigns of the sea.

They moved faster than any ship, than any airship, than any crea­tion of mankind.

As the great cruben fleet approached the Amu Strait, the riders raised the red flags of Cocru charged with double ravens.

To the patrolling Imperial fleet, what they saw was a scene out of myths, legends, descriptions of mirages. The great cruben was the symbol of the princeps or the emperor, and yet Cocru soldiers were riding them. It was impossible. It could not happen.

One of the Imperial ships was slow to get out of the way, and a cruben decided to ram it with its horn. The ship's solid ironwood hull and oaken masts snapped like twigs stepped on by a giant, and men were thrown into the air as the ship under their feet exploded into a million pieces of splinter and wreckage.

The crubens arrived at Rui, one of the home islands of Xana. They swam close to shore, slowly making a counterclockwise circuit of the island.

The men on their backs waved the flag of Cocru and shouted that the empire had fallen, that Mata Zyndu had already marched into the Immaculate City and was burning down the palace at this very moment. Duke Garu of Zudi had come to seek the surrender of Rui, and any who refused would be struck down by the sovereigns of the sea.

The men of Rui stood mute at the sight of crubens ferrying Cocru soldiers. No one had ever even heard of people riding on crubens, much less seen it with their own eyes. Surely this meant that the gods were on the side of the rebels.

Xana soldiers did not approach as the crubens beached themselves, and their riders climbed down. They stood at attention as the great fish backed into the water, turned, and swam away. They set down their weapons as Duke Garu walked solemnly down the streets, the bloodred ensign of Cocru waving over him.

Kuni Garu arrived at Mount Kiji Air Base, where the engineers and the administrators lay prostrate on the ground to welcome the conqueror of Rui.

“We've come a long way,” said Luan Zya, a smile on his face.

“Just a little farther,” said Kuni, smiling back.

Then the five hundred ascended into the air in ten great airships and winged their way back toward the Big Island, to Pan.

As the airships floated over the fields and towns of Haan and Géfica, people stopped, looked up, and then went back to their work. Marshal Marana was preparing to crush the rebels on Wolf's Paw, and these new airships were no doubt going to provide additional reinforcements. The empire would triumph, as everyone had always known it would.

The airships slowed as they approached Pan and descended toward the palace. The palace guards looked at the ships with little concern. Had the emperor, perhaps, decided that he would ride one of the airships to the front so that he could witness the death throes of the rebels personally?

They landed in the middle of the Great Court, the wide-open space before the Grand Audience Hall where Emperor Erishi reviewed the palace guards and sometimes played hunting games with horses and animals drugged to be docile and easy to shoot.

“Leave twenty men with me,” Luan said. “We will guard one of the airships. If you don't succeed in an hour, fight your way back and we'll retreat.”

“Do you always plan for failure even when success is within reach?” Kuni asked.

“It's the prudent thing to do.”

“If you hadn't thought of the possibility of failure, I wonder if your attempt to assassinate Mapidéré might have worked out differently. Because you thought of escaping to Zudi, you did not want to burden your flying machine with too much weight. You could have carried bigger bombs, or flown lower before launching them.”

Luan stood still as he pondered this.

“Sometimes prudence is not a virtue,” said Kuni. “I gambled a lot when I was younger. I can tell you that Tazu is more fun than Lutho. If you're going to gamble, you'll have more fun if you don't hold anything back.”

Luan laughed. “Then let's make this wager count. I will fight by your side today, and no one will stay behind.”

Armored soldiers jumped out of the ships and rushed into the palace, Luan and Kuni in the lead.

Luan guided Kuni and the others away from the main doors, constructed of lodestone. Mapidéré had been paranoid about assassins, and those who came to see the emperor were required to be disarmed. If, by chance, someone managed to come into the palace armed, the magnetic doors would pull the swords out of their hands. Instead, Luan pointed to the side doors, reserved for the emperor's own guards and servants.

They ran over the model of the Islands in the Grand Audience Hall, the model that Emperor Erishi had taken such care to construct. Wine splashed everywhere, and the fountains finally ceased to flow as Kuni Garu's soldiers crushed the delicate pipes underfoot, casually, almost as an afterthought, on their way to the rest of the palace.

The palace guards woke from their slumber and rushed onto the Great Court. But it was too late. Fire was burning everywhere, and the wailing and screaming of dying ministers and servants filled the halls.

To search the vast palace effectively, Luan and Kuni divided their forces in half. Luan would cover the western side while Kuni took the eastern side.

Dafiro Miro followed the duke closely. Mün Çakri had told him that his job was to
protect
the duke. Sure, maybe Mün only meant that he needed to keep the duke from falling off the cruben into the sea since the duke didn't know how to swim. But Dafiro was going to take the instructions very literally and stay right by the duke's side.

The duke didn't want to die, and others would always try to save him if things went wrong.
Therefore, the safest place to be in battle is
right next to the duke.
Dafiro was always very practical.

They rushed through the halls, following every twist and turn, dividing into halves where the paths branched. Kuni seized a servant and forced him to lead the way. Dafiro and the others set fire to everything they could see. They wanted to create as much confusion and chaos as possible.

Then they were rushing down a corridor, which terminated in thick golden doors. Kuni Garu pulled on the doors, but they were locked from within. Dafiro and the others lifted up a heavy stone statue of Kiji found in one of the alcoves in the corridor and began to use it as a battering ram.

Tum, tum, tum.

They could hear frightened shouts and desperate whispers from behind the doors. The people inside had nowhere to run.

Tum, tum, tum.

Shouting and heavy steps echoed up the corridor. They looked back and saw that some palace guards had found them and were closing fast. A few of the soldiers dropped the statue/battering ram to hold off the guards, while the duke and Dafiro continued to batter the door.

There were many guards, too many for the few soldiers that Kuni had with him. Farther up the corridor, Mün Çakri, Than Carucono, Rin Coda, and their men hacked at the guards, trying to join up with Kuni. But they were too far away.

The door gave way.

Kuni and Dafiro tumbled through. They were inside a huge bedroom, and a crying boy was on the bed, trying to hide himself by piling blankets around himself. He wore a silk robe embroidered with the figures of leaping crubens.

An old man stood at the foot of the bed, wearing an expression that was a mixture of pity and triumph. He turned around to face the men who had burst through the door. “I am Prime Minister Goran Pira. Now if you will put down your weapons and listen—”

Dafiro bashed in his skull with one strike from Biter. He had no time to waste on anyone who stood in the way of his prize. He was going to get his hands on the boy emperor.

Whichever man, be he churl or earl, captures Emperor Erishi will be made the King of Géfica.
Dafiro's lips curled up in a smile. Of course he didn't expect to be really made a king, but surely Duke Garu would reward him handsomely for paving his way.

But Kuni had moved even faster. He was on the bed in one leap, pulled the boy in front of himself, and pushed the blade of his sword up against the boy's throat.

“Tell your guards to stop fighting,” Kuni said, and brushed the boy's neck with the edge of the sword so that a thin trickle of blood formed against the pale skin.

“Stop, stop, stop fighting!” Emperor Erishi shouted as tears and mucus covered his red face.

The guards hesitated, uncertain what to do.

Too bad that the boy wasn't closer to this side of the bed,
Dafiro thought.
Ah well, you can't ever win a race against the duke. He's too
clever.

“I'm going to bash your head in just like the old coward's, if you don't get them to stop.” Dafiro waved Biter at the boy.

The boy was so frightened that he could not speak. The entire room fell silent.

Then, everyone heard the sound of water trickling against the marble floor.

Emperor Erishi had let his bladder go.

The guards dropped their swords.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

BATTLE OF WOLF'S PAW

WOLF'S PAW: THE TENTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Wolf's Paw stood across the Kishi Channel from the Itanti Penin­sula. Its northern and eastern sides, facing the endless ocean, were dominated by rugged cliffs that provided few safe harbors. On the other hand, its western and southern coasts, facing the channel, sloped gently down to the sea and offered many inviting ports. This was the heart of old Gan, which, besides Wolf's Paw, also claimed the rich alluvial plains and the bustling cities of Géjira on the Big Island.

The most prominent port on Wolf's Paw was Toaza, the Port That Never Slept and capital of old Gan. Deep, sheltered along the island's southern shore, and warmed by hidden currents, Toaza's waters never froze even in deepest winter. From here, Gan's intrepid merchants sailed to all the Islands of Dara and built a maritime trade network unrivaled by any of the other Tiro states. In every major port city of Dara, one could find quarters filled with sailors and merchants speaking in the accent of Gan, which had been described by scholars, disdainful for lucre, as “jangling with the sound of filthy coins.”

The Gan merchants smiled at this and took it as a compliment. Let Haan be high-minded and continue to philosophize, and let Amu be alluring and hang on to its elegance and sophistication, the people of Gan understood that only gleaming gold gave one security, gave one power.

But shipping across the Kishi Channel was a hazardous endeavor because of the god Tazu.

It was said that Tazu manifested himself as a ten-mile-wide maelstrom of roiling water that sucked everything within its orbit into the bottomless deep. It wandered up and down the channel like an angry child tumbling around its room. No one had ever been able to predict its pattern of movement, capricious like the will of Tazu, the legendary rogue. Vessels captured by the whirlpool had no chance of escaping, and over the years, countless ships, some laden with treasure, some filled with lives, were sacrificed to the god's insatiable hunger.

The only year-round safe shipping lanes to Wolf's Paw involved long detours that avoided the channel by approaching Wolf's Paw from the the south. This meant that most of the ports in Wolf's Paw, save for Toaza, were unusable for long-range shipping, though daring shippers, lured by the draw of shorter trips and quicker profit, sometimes risked crossing the channel by betting against the movement of Tazu. Occasionally, they succeeded.

Mata Zyndu sat brooding in his camp at Nasu, on the eastern shore of the Maji Peninsula.

Kikomi's betrayal had infuriated him and then left him drained of feeling, like the Kishi Channel after Tazu passed through—a calm surface strewn with wreckage, and in the depths underneath, death.

He blamed his own foolishness and that of his uncle. They were taken in by a woman, one blinded by love.

How could she rebel against her noble birth? Act contrary to her duty to her people? Amu needed a leader who would give them strength to resist the empire, and yet she had willingly become an assassin for Kindo Marana because she had fallen for him.

As he thought about what she had done, Mata's hands shook with rage, and he believed that he would strangle her himself if she were still alive.

And yet, he could not deny that even knowing the falsity of her words and pretended feelings, he missed her. He had taken something of great value hidden in his heart and willingly handed it to her. And she had torn it to pieces and scattered it to the winds so that it was gone forever. Yet he did not want to have it back. He wanted only to be able to give it to her again. And again.

At the same time, he was racked with guilt for how he had behaved toward his uncle. Phin had been the only surviving member of Mata's family, the closest thing he had to a father. He was the source of all Mata's dreams about the glorious past of the Zyndu Clan and the force that propelled him to emulate the martial deeds of his illustrious ancestors. Phin Zyndu was the template against which Mata had always measured himself, the one man whose opinions on duty and honor he valued above all others. He was Mata's sole connection to the past and his most trusted guide for the future.

And yet, over Kikomi, he had almost been willing to come to blows with his uncle, like a madman or a lowly peasant consumed with jealousy. Mata's shame weighed so heavily on him that he could not lift his head.

He yearned to redeem himself on the battlefield, to wash away his shame in blood and glory.

After Phin's death, he was the Duke of Tunoa, and the last man to carry the proud Zyndu name. He had expected that he would now be made Marshal of Cocru and put in charge of the battle on Wolf's Paw. But as the days passed, neither King Thufi nor General Roma, commander-in-chief at Wolf's Paw, sent for him to offer him a role befitting his station.

He was still merely the commander of a rear guard of two thousand to remain at Nasu. His only job was to wait and guard the rebels' retreat should they fail to overcome the emperor's most puissant strike.

He saw the silence from Toaza and Çaruza as an insult, a rebuke. He sulked and drank and brooded.

Théca Kimo, now acting as his aide-de-camp, came every hour to give him the latest military reports on the situation on Wolf's Paw, but he barely paid any attention.

Torulu Pering, rebel tactician and adviser, entered the audience hall and knew right away that something was wrong. General Pashi Roma, commander-in-chief of the Alliance on Wolf's Paw, was staring at a scout's report on the tea table in front of him, his brows knit in a tight frown and his fingers tapping nervously.

Pering decided to get right to the point. “Bad news from the Ogé Islands?”

Roma started and looked up. “Terrible.”

“How many ships were lost?”

“Nearly all. Only two made their way back.”

Pering sighed. Roma had ordered the rebel navy to intercept the Imperial armada in the Ogé Islands, the archipelago to the north of Wolf's Paw, supposedly formed from the sweat drops of the god Rufizo, a plan Pering had objected to from the start.

An old teacher of the Classics who had impressed both King Thufi and Phin Zyndu with his knowledge of ancient books of mili­tary strategy—most of which had been burned by Emperor Mapi­déré after the Conquest—Pering had actually begun his career as a merchant who plied the trade routes between the Big Island and Wolf's Paw. He knew the sea and the unique challenges of fighting upon it.

Roma, who had spent his entire career in the pre–Conquest Cocru army in the logistics and supply divisions, had little exposure to the battlefield except the defense of Çaruza. He thus tended to think of all military endeavors as variations of city defense. Viewing the Ogé Islands as analogous to the gates to Wolf's Paw, he had believed that a hodgepodge of rebel ships could hide among the tiny islands to disguise their true strength and surprise the Imperial armada, much as the appearance of undefended city walls could lure attackers into coming too close before being surprised by a shower of falling rocks and buckets of burning oil.

But Pering knew that hiding ships was nothing like hiding men. Without air support, naval ambushes were impossible under the gaze of Marana's airships. This, however, was not the time for
I told you so
.

“As we speak, the armada is sailing around the eastern shore of Wolf's Paw to assault Toaza.” Roma's voice was morose. “We're done for!”

“We still have half of our fleet left in Toaza Harbor,” offered Pering. “If we keep them close to shore, batteries of catapults and ballistae on land could support them, and the shallow waters and hidden reefs will give the armada's larger and deeper-drafting ships less room to maneuver.”

“What good are these tricks when Marana has airships?” Roma snapped.

Pering suppressed the urge to grab Roma by the neck of his robe and shake him. The old general was swinging wildly from over­confidence to despair. Before, he had ignored the power of airships; but now, he was convinced they were invincible.

Keeping his voice calm, Pering said, “Airships may be useful, but they're hardly unbeatable. The navies of the Six States had all developed techniques for dealing with them. For example, our ships could cover their decks with a layer of armor made from rawhide stretched tight across wooden frames like drums, so that the tar bombs from the airships would bounce harmlessly off them.”

Roma looked at Pering skeptically. “But then they can still bomb Toaza. We can hardly cover the whole city with armor.”

“If they try, they won't be able to sustain the bombing campaign for long. Airships are very limited in their armament capacity, and a few raids will hardly cause much damage.”

“But if they concentrate on the palace, King Dalo will lose all will to fight.”

“True. But I have a plan for taking care of the airships.”

The Imperial armada arrived at the southern shore of Wolf's Paw.

In the Battle of Toaza Harbor that followed, the rebel ships, supported by land-based batteries, managed to hold out for three days against sustained air-and-sea assaults from the armada, sinking six ships of the line.

As Roma predicted, Kindo Marana changed tactics and ordered an aerial bombardment of Toaza, focusing on King Dalo's palace.

As the airships approached the Toaza, thousands of floating bamboo-and-paper lanterns rose into the air from the city.

“Have you seen anything like these before?” Marana asked the pilot in the cockpit of
Spirit of Kiji
, his flagship.

The pilot shook his head.

“Better order the fleet to avoid them.”

“But there are too many for us to maneuver around them. Besides, they're so small, I don't think the tiny flames powering them will do any damage to our hulls.”

But out of caution, Marana ordered
Spirit of Kiji
to stop while the other ships pressed on.

The airships sailed into the swarm of floating lanterns like a whale amongst a school of minnows. The lanterns seemed to stick to the airship hulls like remoras.