The Emperors Knife

CHAPTER Twenty

Eyul studied the charred corpse. “A horse. They hadn’t the fuel to do much more than scorch it.”

Amalya crouched over the twisted remains. The heat had tightened tendons and left the beast contorted. “There’s a body underneath, a woman.”

“Tribesmen, then, Felting riders off the grass,” Eyul said. “A long journey that, to die in the desert.”

Amalya lifted her hand. “Wait.” She kept still, her lips pressed tight in concentration. The smell of sulphur rose in the air, making Eyul cough, and blue flame flickered in Amalya’s eyes before orange bloomed there, wild and hot. When she opened her mouth again, smoke issued. Her words were rough, as if ash filled her throat. “Young, female. Stone around her throat and feathers on her chest. A horse with metal on its tail. A waste. The fire was not allowed to kill them.”

“How did the female die?” Eyul had never addressed Metrishet before. The elemental unsettled him. He knew one day it would consume Amalya.

Amalya closed her eyes and stood up, coughing. “An arrow.”

“This is the Felting girl.” Eyul studied the hollow between the dunes. An empty barrel and a ripped canvas lay discarded in the sand. Someone had camped here and left in a hurry.

“So it is. Beyon’s doing?”

Eyul looked towards Nooria. “For all his killings, I’ve never known the

emperor to cause the death of a woman or a child.”

“But the pattern… Perhaps it has him now?”

“Or he didn’t do it.” He looked at the bodies again.

“Let us move on,” said Amalya. “There is nothing more for us to learn here.”

“All this to bed a queen?”

Bed her? I have done that. Next I will own her. “Why set my sights so low?”

Tuvaini asked. “Can I not hunger after power like every other man?” “With you it always has to be personal.” Arigu looked up from his goblet, a certain humour in his dark eyes. “There has to be someone to defeat, to humble… or covet.”

“Perhaps you know less of me than you think, old friend.” Tuvaini wrinkled his nose at the sour whiff of Arigu’s ale. He’d picked up the taste on distant campaigns.

“Perhaps.” Arigu acknowledged the possibility. “But I’m right, aren’t I? It’s Nessaket.” Drops of amber glistened in the tight curls of his beard as he lowered his goblet again.

As Arigu grinned Tuvaini felt a pang of old hatred. So often he’d wanted to sink a fist into that broad, amiable face, though he’d probably break his hand on those raw-boned features. Rumour had it that the blood of Mogyrks flowed in the general’s veins; a grandmother raped when the Yrkmen rode the desert with sword and holy fire. The slander spread well; Arigu’s build and colouring fed the whispers. Tuvaini had never regretted starting that rumour.

I had Nessaket. Soon I will have the empire. “You mistake me, Arigu. I’m as loyal to the emperor as you are.” Let him play with that. He returned his gaze to the Settu tiles between them. The game had run to plan. The game always ran to plan: Arigu had never beaten him in all their years of play, and yet here he was again, accepting one more challenge, showing no surprise that Tuvaini had discovered his return to the palace, no fear that he might be arrested at any moment. He sat calm, patient, ready to stand the tiles once more.

Arigu had nothing, just the tenuous loyalty of soldiers camped in the desert. Even so, Tuvaini felt uneasy. His Fort tile and his Rock tile stood central to the board, dominant, flanked by Tulwars with a string of River tiles to the rear. Yet he felt disquiet.

“What game are you playing, Tuvaini?” Arigu pushed a Spy stone out to the furthest corner of the board.

Tuvaini placed the Tower, setting the tile squarely before the Rock. “Why, Settu, of course, Glorious General.”

He doesn’t play to win, he plays to learn. To learn me.

Tuvaini had his men waiting outside. He need only light the lamp in the window and they would rush in and seize the general. Yet he remained in his seat. Arigu led ten thousand loyal soldiers. What would they do, seeing their leader in chains? And he’d met no commander strong enough to take Arigu’s place. It troubled him, a loose thread against his finger. It did not escape his notice that he had cursed Beyon for the same hesitation. “So you have run back to the city alone.” Tuvaini waited for Arigu to admit the girl had died, that his plan had failed, but Arigu only fingered his tiles. Tuvaini continued, searching for the words that would provoke a reaction. “It would be a mistake to bring this Felting girl to the city with Beyon searching for her. And for you.”

Arigu smiled his broad and friendly smile. “You have not arrested me, old friend.”

“To ally yourself with the horse tribes is perilous. You risk the empire, and your throat, for your ambition,” he said.

Arigu’s smile widened. “Whereas you risk only the emperor?”

I risk nothing that has not already been lost.

Tuvaini set the fifth and last of his Army tiles, white, for the White Hat Army. Taller than any tile on the board, it stood now at the head of an unstoppable advance into Arigu’s heartland. Tuvaini steadied the tile and drew his hand away quickly, spreading his fingers. It had been a long time since accident had felled any of his tiles before the Push. Settu was a game for steady hands. All games were. “Tuvaini, old friend, no man can risk the empire.” Arigu set another Spy stone.

His tiles stood in scattered confusion. Tuvaini had the game. “The empire cannot be taken. It cannot be lost. It’s too strong,” Arigu said. He reached for his Dominants, the tiles he should have played at the start. They were useless now, but his to play if he chose. “The empire rests on three pillars, and each in turn could bear the load alone.” Arigu set out his own White Hat Army, the first pillar. “All the grass tribes, stretching out even to the trade lands of Kesh and the Vaulcan Marches, with the nomads from the dunes to sharpen their spears, would be held by the army at the Cerani gates. Not through numbers—there could be five Riders to each man of Cerani—but because war rests on the science of supply and method, not bravado and the application of warpaint.”

“I’m not a schoolboy,” Tuvaini said, but Arigu went on.

He set his Fort tile behind the Army tile. “The walls of Nooria are the second pillar: a stone currency with which time itself can be purchased. And with time, aid will come from the four corners of the empire.” Arigu tapped each of his Army tiles in turn, spread out at random across the board. Behind the Fort, Arigu laid the Tower. “And the third: the mages cannot be turned from their service to the throne.”

“My tutor always taught me that the empire was indestructible.” Tuvaini

pursed his lips. What about the girl? “But I am not reassured.” He reached towards his Assassin tile to claim the victory.

Arigu waved Tuvaini’s hand away. “The empire is in no danger.” He laid a finger on his Emperor tile. “But there can be change.”

Arigu made the Push. His Emperor tile fell. The Emperor caught the Assassin, and the Assassin the Vizier. The cascade continued, splitting, dividing around the Spy stones, spreading out across the board with the soft, rapid click of tile felling tile. Patterns Tuvaini had neither seen nor imagined emerged, grew and died, and still the toppling continued. Tuvaini stared at the ruin before him. Fallen tiles covered every inch of the Settu board. Six tiles only remained standing, the same on each side: the

White Hat Army, the Fort and the Tower.

“A draw.” Arigu drained his goblet and stood to leave.

“Your plan is finished, Arigu.” Tuvaini couldn’t keep the anger from his voice.

“Not yet.” Arigu straightened his tunic and reached for his swordbelt.

“The girl comes.”

She lives? His men had failed, and Arigu stood there smiling. Knowing.

Tuvaini rose to his full height, fury guiding his words.

“To seed claimants to the Petal Throne among the grass tribes? You would grow a pet emperor with relatives who live on horseback.” He made a sharp gesture towards the board. “Men who can’t even play Settu.” “We can all learn new games, Tuvaini. If enough emperors die, the kingmakers will eventually come to your door. You even have Beyon’s look, though scraped a little thinner, it’s true.” Arigu tightened his belt, jiggled his sword in its scabbard and flashed a dark smile. “We can’t all stake our

hopes on ties to the royal bloodline, however tenuous. Some of us have less regal ancestry… or so the gossips say.”

“She will die.” Tuvaini spoke the words to Arigu’s back. It would happen.

He had the means and the will to make it happen.

Arigu paused at the door, looking every inch the general.

“I need an emperor who needs me, Tuvaini. I need an emperor who can see that we stand poised to take the world. I’ve seen it, Tuvaini. I’ve seen all the nations between the seas. There is nothing like Cerana.”

The general’s unexpected eloquence struck Tuvaini. He’d spoken the truth: the empire set its sights too low. More could be found over mountain and water. Gems to the north, spice to the south, wood to the east; they spread out before him, dates for plucking.

Tuvaini said, “Wait.”

Arigu turned, the door half-open, his face drawn in question. Tuvaini swept the tiles away, clearing the board. “We can talk about that.”