The Kraken King, Part 3 Read online

  The old soldier smiled a bit when Ariq slumped down with them. “No speech for us?” Bartan asked.

  He used to give one before they went into battle. He wasn’t their commander now and this wasn’t the rebellion. But they were still fighting for their homes and families.

  “May your heart be iron.” Ariq said the same words he’d said hundreds of times before, and that had been said thousands of times before he’d first spoken them. “And your will be steel.”

  No more needed to be recited. They all knew the rest. They’d learned it before they’d walked, and many would speak it as they died.

  But Tsetseg added, “And remember that winning a battle without shedding a drop of blood is a greater victory than the slaughter of a thousand armies.”

  Yes. Ariq had said that before, too. But it hadn’t been passed down from other commanders and soldiers. His mother had told him that when he’d been a boy. Years had passed before he’d understood it.

  Blood would be shed today. But Ariq would consider it a victory if none of the blood was human.

  “Keep your weapons holstered,” he told them.

  ***

  Despite the pilot’s warning, they didn’t have to wait. Lord Jochi arrived at the docks as their ferry did. The den lord must have had someone watching Ariq and reporting his movements, preparing for his arrival.

  Ariq would have done the same. It was why he’d sent Jeong-hak and Vasili to the island ahead of his visit. Ariq liked to make his own preparations before engaging in battle—even a bloodless one.

  “Any change?” he asked quietly.

  Jeong-hak looked to the gates, where a line of incoming passengers waited to have the money in their purses counted. More passengers were searched before they boarded departing ferries. The lines were orderly, the officials efficient—but that could be for show.

  “It’s the same,” Jeong-hak said. “Coins counted, but none taken, and if they’re leaving to work they have to report their earnings when they return.”

  “And Jochi?” he asked Vasili.

  The gunner’s blond eyebrows jerked up and down in the big man’s version of a laugh. “He gussied himself up. He didn’t wear anything as fancy yesterday, or the day before.”

  Hoping to make a good impression—if an odd one. Though he’d originally come from the heart of the Golden Empire, just as Ariq had, Jochi didn’t wear a topknot. He’d cut his hair short and grown a beard, trimmed to a point beneath his chin. He wore a tunic, but had topped it with an embroidered waistcoat, and his trousers were in the western style, stiff and tight. Those must be damned hot on a day like this. Jochi’s balls were probably sweltering in them—but even in the winter, Ariq’s visit might have had him sweating.

  He was younger than Ariq had remembered. No more than a few years past twenty.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t rule over a den, or do it well. Children became adults quickly in the dens—and in the rebellion. At the same age, Ariq had been commanding armies.

  He’d also been making mistakes. By all accounts, Jochi was making his own.

  “So you are finally here!” The den lord’s smile was welcoming, if thin. “For three days, I have heard nothing but ‘the Kraken has come.’ That you will ask me about the silver flyers and show me photographs of dead men, and tell me that the empress will destroy us all. So we rats are the last?”

  “The twins pointed to you,” Ariq told him. “So I expected to find answers elsewhere.”

  A lie. Ariq knew the twins had spoken the truth. But it would allow Jochi to save face. Ariq knew a young man’s pride. If that was damaged, so would any hope of resolving this peacefully.

  “Of course the twins would.” Jochi shook his head and laughed, then clasped Ariq’s forearm in greeting. “And you are welcome here, whether I have answers or not.”

  The other man’s grip was strong, but Ariq saw the uneasy moment when Jochi realized that Ariq could have crushed him. Still, he didn’t flinch or pull away. He looked to Ariq’s companions. His smile froze when he spotted Vasili—as if recognizing the big man. He probably did. The gunner was difficult to overlook. But if the den lord was dismayed by the realization that Ariq had been watching him, he didn’t show it.

  “Come then,” he said. “I will tell you what I can, and show you the stadium.”

  That was bold. Ariq had expected that Jochi would direct him away from the arena. He started down the walk with him, the boards well-worn beneath his feet. This route had seen heavy traffic. Ahead, the wooden stadium rose like a giant tortoise over the twigs of nearby buildings. “Your games have been all that I’ve heard about from the other den lords. Your games and your taxes.”

  Some had been coy and only hinted at it, like the twins. Others had told him directly. Jochi had been staging fights in his stadium, but not just between men or machines. He’d brought in death itself—and with it, a paying audience from the other dens.

  “I can imagine what they’ve said. They haven’t liked the changes I’ve made.” Jochi gestured to the lines of passengers at the gates. “I don’t tax my people. I don’t ask for tribute. I only ask that they spend what they earn here.”

  Keeping the money local instead of watching it bleed off the island. But that wouldn’t be why the other den lords didn’t like it. “And in the other dens, people are asking why their taxes are so high.”

  “They do. If you’d come this morning, you wouldn’t have found any laborers left on the docks. Those bastards at the other dens come here looking for workers, and they pay them less—because my people are hungrier.” Anger hardened his voice as he spoke. His face dark, he glanced at Ariq again. “They were hungrier. I don’t take any of what they earn, so my people can live on what little they get. The games bring in the rest, for those that can’t work.”

  Ariq nodded. Here was the poverty that Zenobia had expected, threadbare clothes and ramshackle homes that only seemed to stand with the support of the other shacks crowded next to them. But unlike his last visit, he didn’t see squalor. The stench of shit and decay hadn’t slapped him when he’d stepped onto the docks. And instead of abject misery when the people looked at the den lord, they regarded Jochi with wary hope, and there were not so many hollow cheeks and empty eyes.

  “It is changed from when Merkus stood in your place,” Ariq said.

  “Merkus was a drunken pig on human legs.” Jochi spoke matter-of-factly. Either his anger had ebbed or he’d controlled it. “And he rode this den into the ground—starting when he lost his port contracts with the rebellion. But I’m bringing it back.”

  Unless he ruined it all before he could. “Then let’s see your arena—”

  “Ariq Noyan!”

  Frowning, Ariq looked back—then up. The shout had come from a silver flyer approaching the docks. Unease clutched his chest. That was one of the marauders’ flyers he’d brought from his town. Meeng had one, but he’d remained outside the dens. The other flyer had been stored with the mountain walkers at the inn—and Meeng wasn’t piloting this one. Instead Ariq recognized one of Dayir Sunid’s guards. When Ariq had left the inn that morning, the guard had been standing at the entrance.

  A message. An urgent one, if Dayir was using the flyer to deliver it.

  Zenobia. Was she all right? Ariq’s heart drummed as he strode forward and waved the guard in.

  He shouldn’t have left her. Dregs and hell. The inn should have been safe. Dayir was a good man, a good soldier. But Ariq should have kept her beside him.

  He didn’t wait for the man to land. The flyer hovered overhead, the propellers blasting heated air into his face. He shouted up to the guard. “What is it?”

  A note fluttered in his gloved hand. Ariq snatched it and read the message as the flyer settled onto the boards.

  No danger. Zenobia had asked Dayir to hire an airship.

  He hadn’t thought she
would. Not until Cooper was ready to go. Ariq hadn’t misread her guilt over the man’s injuries. If she had a choice, Zenobia wouldn’t leave the mercenaries behind.

  She must feel that her time was running out—and that she had to deliver those letters soon.

  All right, then. All right. His business here was almost done, anyway.

  “Make the arrangements,” he told the guard. “But the airship doesn’t leave until I’m on it.”

  The man nodded. Ariq stepped back. The engine wound to a buzzing whine before the flyer lifted off the ground.

  Jochi watched it go, then looked down as Ariq joined him. “Is everything well?”

  No. Zenobia would have left without seeing him again.

  But Ariq only said, “You’ve seen that flyer before.”

  The den lord’s expression flattened. “I have.”

  “Who bought it from you?”

  Jochi shook his head.

  “You don’t know?” Ariq didn’t believe it.

  “I won’t say.” Jochi’s gaze was steady. “My people have lost enough, and I’ve fought for everything I’ve given back to them. I won’t risk that by giving you a name.”

  He didn’t need to. He’d already told Ariq enough.

  Jochi hadn’t bowed beneath the pressure from the other den lords to tax his people—even though his refusal had probably put a price on his head. And he would have heard by now that Ariq had given the twins a fortune in return for information. He must know Ariq would do the same now. But there was one person who could give the Rat Den more than Ariq could offer: Ghazan Bator. A general for the rebellion, he could renew the port contracts that would allow Jochi to broker smuggled technology from the Golden Empire. That wasn’t just worth the money to Jochi. It would give the Rat Den back something they’d lost under Merkus.

  Or so the young man thought. But he didn’t know Ghazan Bator as well as Ariq did.

  Feeling suddenly tired, he gestured that they continue on toward the arena. Ariq only wanted to return to Zenobia’s side. Even if the marauders weren’t rebels themselves, the rebellion was responsible for the attacks—and the letters in her pack might as well have painted a target on her back.

  He’d stop them. He’d stop her. But first, he had to stop Jochi.

  As if disbelieving that Ariq had finished his questions, Jochi watched him warily for a long moment, then looked to Ariq’s soldiers before starting along the boarded walk.

  “You should come tonight,” he said, then added dryly, “I’ve heard that all of the den lords intend to see the games. Even the twins.”

  Of course they would. They hoped to watch Ariq destroy him.

  Ariq didn’t intend to do it in front of an audience. “They will be disappointed.”

  “I hope so.” With a shrug, Jochi seemed to discard thoughts of the den lords. A grin made him look even younger than he already did. “Do you still wrestle? We could put you in the arena and make a fortune.”

  Ariq did, but not as he once had. “Only during celebrations.”

  “And he was finally beaten last New Year,” Tsetseg said behind him.

  So he had been. And she’d been in the pile.

  “Ariq Noyan wasn’t beaten.” Though at the time, Vasili had crowed about the victory as much as Tsetseg had, the blond soldier was frowning at her now. He didn’t like Jochi hearing of Ariq’s defeat. “It wasn’t a fair fight. There were eight of us, and he’d drunk enough arkhi to drop an elephant.”

  “I was beaten,” Ariq said. “‘Fair’ means nothing in battle. Enemies won’t always be weaker.”

  “‘Fair’ means something in a game.” Jochi stopped and looked up at him. “It meant something when you fought the Butcher—and he was stronger than you were.”

  That story would live longer than Ariq did. “So you’ve heard of that.”

  “No,” Jochi said. “I saw it.”

  While still in swaddling? It had been Ariq’s fifteenth summer, and his first time accompanying Ghazan Bator to the dens. Hoping to win favor with the general, Lord Duval had greeted them with a celebration in his honor, and invited the other den lords to bring three of their strongest to compete in his sand pit. Though the rebels were only meant to be spectators to the tournament, Ghazan Bator had put Ariq in the arena, too.

  He’d earned his name there. The Kraken. Because of the tattoo already on his back, his unbreakable grip, and—after the den lords had each begun sending in all three of their champions against him at once—because his opponents had begun to joke that Ariq seemed to possess more than two arms.

  Unfair had been pitting one man against Ariq. Even three men barely had a chance. His general hadn’t cared. Most of the den lords hadn’t, either. Merkus had. He’d brought in a new champion, one that he’d claimed would even the odds—a man who’d once been a butcher in the Moroccan labor colony. After he’d moved to the dens, the knives and cleavers grafted to his arms had been traded for mechanical hands, and a full pneumatic exoskeleton strengthened his frame.

  No one who’d looked at the Butcher believed the odds were even.

  It hadn’t mattered. Ariq had fought; he’d won. And when they’d returned to the mainland, Ghazan Bator had given him command of his first unit of soldiers.

  The name had followed him, too. But he’d earned it again on the battlefield—the commander with the unbreakable grip and who never failed to reach his enemies.

  Almost twenty years had passed since then. “You watched the fight?”

  “I’ll never forget it.” Jochi shook his head. “Everyone thought you would lose. Everyone. Then you locked your arms around the Butcher’s shoulder pistons and it was over. Merkus said you must have known how to defeat his gear—and that was why you accepted the challenge.”

  Ariq hadn’t known how to defeat him. He just hadn’t had any other choice.

  “No,” he said. “I had one purpose in that sand pit: to show the rebellion’s strength. I’d have lost everything if I failed or if I walked away from a challenge. I would never have commanded a unit. I’d have been left in the dens to rot. Because Ghazan Bator discards anyone he doesn’t have a use for, or who no longer serves a purpose.”

  Just as the Rat Den would no longer serve a purpose when the Khagan finally fell. It wouldn’t be long. Then a port contract would be worth nothing.

  Judging by the stiffness of Jochi’s shoulders, Ariq’s message had hit exactly where he’d intended. But the den lord couldn’t argue without betraying the name he’d sworn to keep secret. So Ariq only added, “Fair didn’t mean anything against the Butcher, because my fights in that sand pit were never a game.”

  Jochi nodded tightly. They continued on to the arena in near silence, picking up a retinue of curious, giggling children in their wake. For once, Ariq wasn’t the focus of their attention. Vasili’s blond braids were.

  At the entrance, Ariq gestured for the gunner to stay outside. The children would try to sneak in after him. Better for them to wait here until this was finished.

  There was no question where the money from the flyers had gone. The arena had once been little more than a sand pit surrounded by boards laid over wooden pilings. Now benches rose around the stadium floor, with boxes for visiting lords and merchants. A high wall ringed the arena; no one sat level with the pit. Staging theaters had been built at both ends.

  So Jochi hadn’t relied on the port contracts. He’d invested in this—and his wrestlers. Ariq had already heard complaints about how the den lord had lured the fighters away from other arenas. They practiced now at the edge of the pit, their bodies glistening with oil. Tan lines showed where they usually wore armor protecting their necks, their arms and legs.

  Against another man, clothing and armor meant certain failure. Unlike oiled skin, an opponent could grab onto armor and force a man to his knees.

  Against zombies, that armor me
ant life.

  He looked over the wrestlers before turning to Jochi. “Where are your pens?”

  “Pens?” The young man’s brow furrowed. He shook his head. “I don’t have pens.”

  Jeong-hak stepped forward. “Under the stadium. They come through that entrance.”

  He pointed to the east staging area. So Jochi had kept the creatures here, despite knowing Ariq was coming. That might have been arrogance, but probably just meant Jochi had a working brain in his head. Moving the zombies off-site posed more risk than Ariq ever could.

  Ignoring the den lord’s denials, Ariq started toward the staging theater. By the time they reached the door, Jochi’s protests had turned to resigned, frustrated silence. The wrestlers had stopped their practice, watching quietly as Ariq left the arena.

  Cages stood open around the chamber. On the night of a game, the zombies would be kept here until they were released into the stadium. Now they were empty. Without pausing, Joeng-hak led them to a cargo lift.

  Jochi didn’t attempt more denials. He tried to salvage. “We’re careful. Two doors at every junction. The outer doesn’t open if they aren’t under control.”

  “You’ll never have control,” Ariq said. The cargo lift rattled and the young man became more frustrated with every foot they descended.

  “We do.” Anger bit through his reply. “They’re handled with poles. One man to keep it contained, and another always ready to shoot. We check every guard for bites before he leaves.”

  The stench hit when the lift docked. Decay. Rotting flesh. The rattling stopped and growls filtered through from the pens.

  He left Tsetseg, Bartan, and Jeong-hak to guard the lift and prevent anyone else from coming down. Strong doors secured the next chamber. Thick, heavy doors. They would never be enough.

  More cages stood in the pens. Fingers grasping like claws, skin hanging loosely from gaping wounds, two dozen zombies pushed against the thick iron bars—brought in from Europe, from Africa. There was no way to tell. They were all the same. Ravenous. Mindless.

  Ariq drew his pistol.

  “No!” Jochi grabbed his wrist. “You think anyone would come to see men grappling with each other? They won’t pay for that. They want men like the Butcher. They want machines. They want to see blood and death, and they’ll spend money to get it. These things feed my people.”