The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire Read online

  6

  She moved.

  Something numbed her hand.

  Another shot.

  Again her hand tingled.

  The hush that had spread over the arena somehow intensified.

  A single voice whispered into the silence, "Gods' Charity, she blocked them. She blocked the bullets."

  The girl looked down. The knife was still in her hand, but it was pocked in two places. Chewed by the steel of the bullets that the Riflemen had sent toward her stomach.

  Maybe they missed. Maybe they shot the knife on purpose.

  Two stupid thoughts, whirling through a mind utterly stunned by the events of the past few moments.

  Of course they hadn't missed. The range was short, and the Riflemen expert. And why would they shoot a knife?

  The girl's eyes roved over the spectators. They all gaped at her in shock. Some looked terrified, as though afraid she might leap over the barricades that surrounded the arena and start attacking them.

  Why not? Why not kill them? Escape?

  Where would I go?

  There was that. She had no memory of any world before the kennels. First the education kennels, where she was given basic schooling in the hopes she could be sold as a housemaid to some rich landowner, then as a Dog for the fights. If she survived long enough, she knew she would eventually be sold to one of the brothels.

  But other than that… nothing. She could remember only this life, and knew not where she could run to even if she made it out of this place.

  The door the other Pack had come through opened. A man wearing nothing but a loincloth and with a face painted bright red came storming out. "How dare you!" he screamed. "You killed my Pack! I'm ruined!" He spun to look at the Rifleman behind him. "Don't just stand there, dolt!" he shrieked. "Kill the Doglet!"

  The Rifleman hesitated, probably thinking as much about the cost of each bullet as he was about the fact that the first one hadn't had much effect, then aimed.

  "Stop."

  The new voice was deep but young. The voice of one accustomed to being obeyed.

  Everyone in the arena turned. So did the girl, tracking the source of the voice.

  As expected, it was a young man. He looked to be about her age, but where she was dirty and malnourished and clad in nothing but filthy rags, he stood tall and healthy and strong and his red robe and black velvet tunic clearly cost more than an entire Pack on the auction block.

  He held up a shiny black disc. It seemed almost to glow from within, so bright was its sheen. At the sight of it the people around him fell back. Not in fear, but in a muted reverence.

  What's this? wondered the girl. And because she knew that any change could only bring evil, could only cause ill to come upon her, she felt her grip tighten on the knife.

  The young man pointed at the trainer who had come out of the door. "Do not touch her." Then he swiveled. "Where is this girl's trainer?"

  After a moment, Trainer stepped out of the door the girl had come out of. "Mine, sir. I mean, your Lordship. Your Honor, er, Excellen –"

  The young man waved him off. "I claim her for the Empire."

  Trainer opened his mouth as if to object, then thought better of it and simply nodded.

  The girl looked back and forth between Trainer and the young man.

  What's happening? What's going to happen?

  The young man walked down some steps. Disappeared behind the barricades. A moment later a door opened in one of them and he walked through.

  Up close he was even more handsome than she had guessed. Dark hair, a strong face and chin. Blue eyes that seemed to take in everything at once and claim it as his own. He was tall, too, head and shoulders taller than any of the boys in her Pack.

  My ex-Pack. They're all dead.

  The young man stopped, and she realized she was holding her knife in front of her. Pointed straight at his heart.

  "I could probably make you put that down," said the young man. He didn't say it as a challenge. A smile played over his lips. "But I'd rather not try. Would you be willing to lower it?"

  "Just try to make me put it down," the girl snarled.

  He sighed. "Do you like it here?"

  She didn't answer. Just a quick glance at Trainer.

  Apparently he understood what that meant well enough. "If you lower the knife you can come with me. I'll let you keep the knife, but you'll never see this place again."

  She lowered the knife.

  "What's your name?" he said.

  "I'm a Dog."

  "And Dogs have no names?"

  She shook her head.

  He turned around. Began to walk away.

  Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. "Well, come on," he said.

  She followed.

  She kept the knife.

  No one stopped her.

  7

  She could never have conceived of the likes of what came next.

  Always when the girl and her Pack were taken to another place, another arena to fight and kill or die, they were put in a carriage drawn by a horse. The carriage was a simple box with no windows, only a single door. There were a few air holes in the ceiling, but no way to get to them and nothing but sky to see even if they could.

  She had never seen anything but the kennels. At least, not directly. She had seen a few drawings in the schoolbooks, and one time had even glimpsed a moving picture beside one of the teacher's books.

  And, of course, the Dream.

  But this… this was something else.

  The first thing that the girl realized was that everything was just so loud. It seemed like the arena had been taken and amplified a million times – a billion voices all screaming and shouting at one another at once in a cacophony that was nothing short of terrifying.

  She had the knife up again, though she didn't know what she could do with it. The sound could not be killed.

  "Easy," said the young man who had brought her out. "It's just the bazaar." He squinted at her. "Haven't you… haven't you seen this?"

  The girl shook her head. "Never seen anything," she said. "Just the kennels."

  "Well, if you'll put the knife down, we can get in my auto-carriage," he said. "It's quieter in there. But I don't want you to slice up the leather."

  He pointed at a waiting vehicle of some sort. It wasn't boxy like the carriages, nor did it have a horse in front of it. Instead it was sleek and curved at all the edges. Windows that looked like glass – she thought it was glass, it looked like what she had read about – almost completely surrounding an area that was clearly meant for sitting in.

  There was a man in the front. He wore a red and black uniform that the girl recognized from the books: the man was a soldier in the Imperial Army. She didn't know his rank, but he wore a gold braid on one shoulder, a silver sword at his side. He had a gray mustache that was curled up at the corners. He also had one of those black discs on a gold chain around his neck, just like the young man who had rescued her.

  The older man was thin – not gaunt, but his face was all sharp angles and severe corners. Still, he didn't seem angry or aloof, just perfectly put together. Someone who knew at all times what he was doing and exactly why he did it.

  If he had been a Dog, the girl could tell, he would have been a survivor.

  The man leaped out of the "auto-carriage" as they approached, and opened a door in the back. The young man that had taken the girl out of the kennels gestured at her to get in.

  She didn't.

  "Really, are we going to have to have a discussion about trust every few seconds?" he asked.

  She got in. Sat down.

  The seat was so soft she felt like she was falling through her own body. So clean it was like sitting on a cloud. No. She had seen clouds through the holes on the tops of her carriages. These seats were cleaner.

  They'd probably have to be burned after she sat on them.

  The young man got in after her. He took a seat facing the rear of the auto-carriage,
looking at her. The man in the uniform got in the front, and the young man tapped on a glass panel between them. "Home, Lieutenant," he said.

  The lieutenant nodded. He moved a stick on the side of some kind of wheel, and the auto-carriage hummed and started moving.

  The girl yelped and looked around, the knife raising again.

  The young man looked concerned. She was surprised to see that the concern did not seem to be for himself. He appeared utterly unworried about the knife, only about her.

  "What is this?" she gasped. "How are we moving?"

  "You've never been in an auto-car?" he said. Then he hit his own forehead, which she did not understand. "Of course not, dolt." He focused on her. Reached out slowly. Touched the wrist of the hand that held the knife. Slowly pushed it down. "It's all right."

  She was still terrified, but let him push her hand. A strange feeling enveloped her when he touched her. She had never been touched like this before. Only in the Dream. And that always ended in blood.

  She suddenly wondered if this young man would die as the Man and the Woman died. Suddenly realized she did not want that to happen. And did not understand why.

  "Do you know about the Gifts?" he said.

  She shook her head.

  "My goodness," he said under his breath. A smile seemed to play across his face, as though it were trying to break the surface but wasn't sure if it really should.

  "There are people born who are able to do… things. Special things." Then he added an apparently unrelated question that confused her: "Did you never wonder how the guns work? The ones the Riflemen use?"

  She shrugged.

  "There are people who are born with powers. These people are called Gifts. They can do all manner of wonderful things. For instance, Shocks can harness a small bit of the power of lightning and put it into shocksticks or glo-globes. Pushes can make things move, and can enchant things so that they will go of their own accord. So a Push is hired to enchant a small bit of metal, and you have a bullet. Several Pushes together are hired, bound by a Gift called a Thread who is used to tie their power together and make it stronger, and they enchant this auto-car so that it will move without a horse to draw it."

  The girl frowned, not sure of most of what he was saying. She gathered that there were people who had power. That was no surprise – everyone had power, everyone but the Dogs. And that some of them could make things happen without touching anything.

  Some could make these magic auto-cars go.

  "These people are called Gifts?" she said. More to herself than to the young man. But he nodded and smiled as though he were the kennel teacher and she the prize candidate for an auction placement.

  "Aye," he said. "The Gifts are prized, because their talents give the Empire the ability to survive."

  "Survive?"

  "The Empire is on a mountain – five mountains, actually. Clouds below us, through which no man or woman may pass. And though we produce most of what we need in the side-farms, in the mines, we need the help of the Gifts."

  The girl's head was spinning. So many words she didn't understand, so many concepts for which she had no framework and which made little sense to her. She had heard of the Empire during her schooling – what she remembered of it – but this of Gifts, of magic, of Pushes and Shocks. It was all so… strange.

  The young man stared at the girl for a few moments. "Enough of this. There will be time for all. You may call me Devar." He waited, then hit his head with his hand again. A foolish gesture, but one she found oddly endearing. "You already said you have no name." He smiled. The smile made her feel odd. Like the Dream made her feel sometimes, like she might not have to fight that day. A lie, of course.

  "Well," he said a moment later, "we can't have you walking around nameless until your Choosing." She didn't understand that, but she understood well enough when he said, "Why don't we call you Samira? I suspect it won't be your real name, but it will do for now."

  She shrugged, again baffled by most of what he said, but gathering that he wanted to call her Samira. The knife lay across her lap and she touched it gingerly. The hum that had leaped from it to her during the fight was still there, but lessened. Still, she somehow knew that if she was in danger she could take it up again… and kill.

  "Samira it is." Devar smiled even wider. And for just a moment, a beautiful moment, the girl let herself feel hope. She was not a Dog.

  She was Samira.

  8

  Devar said very little on the way to wherever they were going. Which was good because Samira did not want to talk. She wanted to see.

  Talking could be lies.

  Her eyes would speak truth.

  The place where all the noise and clamor was – the place Devar called the bazaar – seemed to go on forever. There were people waving rich-looking cloths, others holding out what looked like savory meats on sticks. Passers-by would stop occasionally, point at something and then wave hands in mock fury before handing over a handful of shiny coins.

  There were magicians that made chickens float, made children's hands move away from their wrists. A few of them held bright spheres of glass above their heads, then lights seemed to dance from their fingers into the spheres and suddenly they held a glo-globe they would sell to customers.

  The glo-globes, Samira noted, were all nicer than the ones Trainer had put in the arena. She had been right: he was a cheap son of a Dog.

  There were fire-eaters, dancing dogs, prostitutes far more garish than any she had seen visiting the Dogfights. All in colors that seemed far too bright after the darkness and muted colors of the kennels and the arena that had been her only world. The only colors in those places were the brown of dust and soils, the yellow of vomit, and the red of flowing blood.

  The noise wasn't as bad in the auto-car, sheltered as she was behind the glass windows. But it was still loud, still made her grip her knife so tightly that her knuckles ached and her fingers began to cramp.

  Eventually, though, the shop fronts began to peter out. The voices of the men and women hawking their wares and those haggling to purchase them grew thin and thinner, then died away completely.

  Now the auto-carriage bounced along a stone-cobbled street lined by plaster houses. Each was a single floor, with a door and one or sometimes two windows open to the air. Occasionally one of the nicer homes would have shutters that could be used to close the windows and provide for a measure of privacy.

  From time to time a face would appear at the window, obviously curious about who was passing by in the auto-car. And whenever someone riding a horse or being pulled by one in a carriage passed them going in the opposite direction, Samira saw them turn to gawk as soon as they thought it possible to do so without being noticed.

  But is it the auto-car or its owner that they're looking at?

  A good question, she thought. But silence was always the best policy for a Dog. And even if she wasn't a Dog anymore –

  (Am I not? Is it possible? Is it real?)

  – she still didn't feel it wise to open her mouth unless it was absolutely necessary.

  A while later the small plaster homes were replaced by stone. Still single-story dwellings, still small, but neater and more solid-seeming and clearly more expensive. Some of them even had glass windows.

  Then these were replaced by two- and three-story stone buildings big enough that they would have taken up the space of five or six of the plaster homes.

  Palaces.

  And still they drove.

  "Where are we going?" she asked.

  "My home," answered Devar.

  "Why?"

  "First of all," he said with that smile of his, "to give you a bath. And to let the lieutenant scrub the seats of the auto-car."

  She nodded. He laughed. "Gods, girl. I was sure that would get a rise out of you."

  "Why would it?"

  "Because I just implied you're dirtier than a pig in a pen."

  "I'm dirtier than that."

  Devar laughed ag
ain, which made no sense because she had only spoken the truth.

  She turned back to the windows.

  The houses were gone. The car had sped up, as the road had opened to a wide dirt road, well-packed and even, and there was no traffic she could see. Another auto-car passed them going the other way. It was silver with black over the wheels and on the front. Devar took no notice of it, as though such things were common to him, or perhaps just common to this area.

  On either side of the road were enormous expanses of grass, kept impossibly short and even. She wondered how the grass could be maintained like that.

  She also wondered how it would feel to walk on. She had, again, seen grass in her books. But that did not prepare her for how it looked. So soft, even as a blur through the auto-car's windows. It looked like a beautiful mattress, put there by the Gods, big enough for a thousand Packs to sleep in comfort for once.

  Far in the distance was a dark blot. She guessed it must be a house. Must be the place where the owner of all this land lived. And must be enormous, to be seen at such a distance.

  She shivered, suddenly afraid. So much wealth, everywhere she looked.

  The shivers turned into full shakes, then into tremors that wracked her from head to toe. The knife, held so tightly in her hand, now fell from nerveless fingers. She twisted in her seat, then tumbled sideways.

  Devar leaped toward her.

  She felt his hands around her arms. A small bit of her wondered if – knew that – she would be punished for fouling his beautiful cloak and tunic with her filthy body.

  She closed her eyes. It was all too much. Too much to see, too much to know.

  She felt darkness pressing around her.

  She let it take her.

  9

  Samira woke. Felt something strange, something that set her on edge. At first she didn't understand what it was. Couldn't place the feeling that gripped her, that set her heart to beating. Then she realized.

  She was clean.

  She looked at her arms. Saw skin, rubbed red and raw from whatever it was that had taken off layers of dirt and grime and offal so thick and deep that they had bound to her flesh. She also saw that she was dressed in a gray robe, and felt that she had nothing on underneath.