Spy's Honor

They killed the sleeping men first. To avoid discovery, Janto extended his shroud over the enemies before his men slit their throats. Then they moved on to the men who weren’t sleeping. The Kjallans stared in shock, uncomprehending, as their companions fell, blood gushing from the gunshot wounds in their chests, and then took bullets themselves. They turned to answer the cries of fellow soldiers, only to receive sword slashes to their throats. It was butchery, ugly and without honor. It had to be done.

Janto was in the kitchen, where a cooking fire burned and a haunch of venison hung from the ceiling, when the upper levels began to rouse. Heavy boots thumped on stone overhead.

“You and you,” he said, selecting men, “go back and guard the front gate. Kill anyone who tries to escape.”

Five coming down the stairs, warned Sashi.

Janto barked a warning, and the remaining soldiers closed around him, shielding him so he could maintain his shroud through the chaos of battle. When the Kjallan squad reached the door, the Mosari met them with a hail of bullets. Men screamed. Bodies dropped to the floor. Smoke filled the room, obscuring the doorway. Janto and his men held their pistols at the ready. Another gunshot rang out, and one of Janto’s men screamed.

Janto found the faint outline of a man in the smoke and fired. The man dodged the bullet—he seemed to have moved a moment before Janto pulled the trigger.

“War mage,” Janto guessed. “San-Kullen! Tas-Droger!”

The two Mosari war mages launched themselves at the Kjallan in the doorway, swords drawn, their brindlecats snarling and bounding ahead of them. The Kjallan ducked out of the room. San-Kullen and Tas-Droger followed. Steel clashed, accompanied by the terrifying growl of the brindlecats.

“To the stairway,” Janto ordered the rest of his men. “We’ll work our way up. You,” he said, selecting a soldier at random, “help the injured man.” He glanced back at Lago, one of Kal’s time-honored veterans, who sat in a pool of blood, clutching his leg.

In the stairwell, one of the brindlecats stood possessively over a body. San-Kullen presented Janto with a topaz mounted on a chain, the riftstone of a war mage.

“Your victory, your token,” said Janto. “Keep it.”

They worked their way up to the second level of the tower, with Sashi scouting ahead and calling back to Janto with the numbers and positions of their enemies. The ferret’s joy and bloodlust spilled over the link, but Janto resisted the vicarious thrill. He was no ferret who killed to survive; he was human, and these were fellow humans he was slaughtering. Rhianne’s countrymen. No doubt they had families and friends who would miss them.

There were only a few Kjallans on the second level. His men dispatched them and headed back up the stairs, which ended at an open trapdoor. Rain had fallen through, leaving the stone wet and slick. Kjallan soldiers clustered around the opening, staring down and pointing their pistols at what must have looked to them like an empty stairway, though it was filled with Janto’s invisible war band.

Janto scooped up Sashi and stuffed him in his shirt. No need for scouting. “Fire,” he said softly.

Gunshots roared. The Kjallans returned fire, and the top of the stairs erupted into a chaos of screams and shooting and smoke. Someone slumped against Janto. Janto moved away, and the dead man, one of his own, rolled partway down the stairs. When the pistols were spent, Janto’s men drew swords. They hoisted themselves up through the trapdoor. Janto followed, his hands slipping on rainwater and gore.

On top of the tower, his men butchered the last of the Kjallans. Tas’s brindlecat ripped out a Kjallan’s throat. Nearby, two of Janto’s men flung a wounded enemy over the side of the tower. Janto wrapped an invisibility shroud around the man to silence his screams.

It was finished. His men stood quietly, panting with exertion. The air smelled of sweat, excrement, and blood. A few men were missing. Still, his band of two dozen had killed more than a hundred Kjallans.

Tas-Droger saluted him. “Tower’s secure, sire.”

Janto nodded. “Good work. Reload your weapons and catch your breath. Then we’ll put these cannons to work.”

After a short rest, they cleared the bodies away from the cannons. Janto set two lookouts, one on top of the tower and one at ground level, and sent men to fetch the wounded Lago.

Four of his men had been killed in the final action. That left him with seventeen to man the guns. The tower had ten thirty-two-pounder cannons, better than anything the ships in the harbor possessed. He had enough men to operate two of them.

“Double-shot them,” he ordered, as they sponged the bores. The men loaded the guns with powder, shot, and wad, and ran them out, ready to fire. “Aim at the Meritorious. Her mainmast.” He gave them a moment to aim, and extended his shroud over the cannons to muffle the noise. “Fire!”

The guns roared, plunging back against their harnesses. The smoky tang of gunfire filled the air.

“Reload,” ordered Janto, rushing to the stone parapets to assess the damage. He could not tell where the balls had struck, but the mainmast still stood. Something had been noticed, however, because men began to swarm up on deck, milling about, confused.

The guns were ready. “Fire,” he ordered. This time, the mainmast shuddered at the impact. Then, very slowly, it began to fall. “Next shot, below the waterline. We’ll sink her if we can. Make Kal’s job easier.”

The Blue Rose and the Reliant were waking up. After sending several more shots into the Meritorious, Janto had his men aim at the Reliant. Sailors swarmed into the tops of all three ships, unfurling the sails. It seemed they had decided not to fire back at the tower. Their guns could do little damage against thick stone walls. They meant to sail out of the harbor to safety.

The Blue Rose, the least damaged of the three, got under way first. Janto smiled grimly. It would not get far.

His eyes went to Kal’s fleet at the mouth of the harbor. The ships slipped silently over the water with all lights doused, nearly invisible to anyone who did not know where to look. The Blue Rose spotted the attacking fleet too late, wheeling to fire. Kal’s lead ships got their broadsides off first. Another circled around to the Blue Rose’s stern. Two more moved to engage the Reliant.

“Concentrate fire on the Meritorious,” Janto ordered. The ship was crippled, down at the stern and listing to port. Its sailors could not get the vessel moving.

In less than an hour, it was over. The Meritorious was sinking. Its surviving sailors clung to lifeboats or leapt off the ship and swam for shore. Kal’s fire mages had set the Blue Rose and the Reliant ablaze. The ships were terrible pyres, the flames climbing up the masts to leap for the heavens. Black smoke spilled off them in great clouds.

Beyond a doubt, they know we’re here. Janto’s eyes went to the Imperial Palace at the top of the hill. Rhianne was there somewhere. Might she be looking down at the harbor even now?

A flash of color caught his eye. The tower beside the palace had sent up the fireworks of a signaling pyrotechnic. Soon he saw answering signals from the tower at the far end of the harbor, and from others more distant, on the horizon. It would not be long before they were relayed all the way across the continent.

Send word, thought Janto with satisfaction. Bring reinforcements. A good first step is to recall your fleet from Sarpol.

He turned his attention back to the harbor, where his boats loaded with ground troops pulled for shore. Hold on, Rhianne. I’m coming for you.

31

In the city of Riat, Janto and his army met almost no resistance. The streets were deserted. Most of the streetlamps were extinguished, forcing them to light their way with blue magelight, which reflected off the tall, rickety buildings and cast strange shadows on the ground. Janto felt as if he’d stepped into the spirit world.

Occasionally they saw signs of life: a pair of eyes squinting through a cracked shutter, the patter of fleeing footsteps. At one house, a small boy watched them from the porch, idly sucking a finger, until a woman flew out