Excerpt: Jade

Pausing under a cherry tree for a moment, he looked up at the sky. Cloudless, the stars could not quite compete with the lamps by the streets and all around the estates, but the moon was making something of an effort. He liked moonlight. It was soft and sharp at the same time, more forgiving than sunlight at any rate. Moonlight and cherry blossoms. He was getting soft.

But not so soft that a hint of hidden movement from the corner of his eye did not bring him to full alertness. His hands hovering over his scimitars, he turned and scanned the shadows around him. More movement, further away, and from the looks of it more than one person. He frowned and moved forward, reaching the corner of the clan Darisipudi estate. There, those were footfalls, in the alley around the corner. Voices, soft.

And suddenly shouting, furious talking. The harsh sound of heels on pavement, suddenly halting. A strange roaring sound and a flash of light. Eshan was half blinded by it, because he had turned the corner at the first shout, one scimitar drawn and running.

‘In the name of the Emperor, halt!’ he called out, keeping his voice firm and low. Everything seemed to pause then, and he blinked as the afterimages faded from his vision and showed him what seemed to be a frozen tableau:

Three figures surrounding a man in what bits and pieces of moonlight revealed to be dirty, tattered clothing, and a fourth figure seemingly having melted from the shadows behind the surrounded man. A bare arm around his throat, ropes of fire around his arms, a knife plunged into his kidney, and vicious whispered words still hanging on the air. All five of them, looking at him, though he could not see their faces clearly. At least three of them wore daggers trapped to their belt, but only the killing blade was out of its sheath.

The moment was broken when the stabbed man slipped free of his captor’s grasp and slumped to the ground, boneless and quite dead. His murderer withdrew a dagger which glinted darkly once, then disappeared. The fiery ropes blinked out of existence so fast that he wondered if he’d imagined them.

Eshan swallowed rising bile and fury, reaffirmed his grip on his scimitar and stood squarely. He might not be able to see their faces, but he would not be cowed by shadows.

‘In the name of the Emperor,’ he repeated, and as he spoke they moved, turning fully towards him – wary, but not menacingly, he noticed – ‘In the name of the Emperor, reveal yourselves and by all means try to convince me I did not just witness a cold-blooded murder.’

Silence followed his words, but one of them stepped forward, a splash of moonlight revealing half a face. Eshan did a double-take; this man was not of Anantha, not with his pale skin and jade green eyes.

‘This was not a murder,’ he said with a heavy, sing-song accent. ‘This was a reckoning.’

‘And this man an escaped criminal,’ the one who had struck the killing blow said, stepping forward as well. The voice and the moonlight, as well as the low cut of her clothes, identified her as a woman, though Eshan had never seen a woman kill so unflinchingly. He hoped he would live a long time before ever seeing it again. ‘We were sent to bring him back, or make sure he stayed gone.’ White teeth glinted in a grin, under glittering, dark eyes. ‘Obviously he did not wish to return.’ She stood with her hand on one hip, unafraid, challenging. Teasing.

‘A reckoning,’ Eshan repeated her companion’s words. The man nodded, and slowly reached into a hidden pocket. The others abandoned their wary stance and as they moved, Eshan managed to pick out more details. Dark colours, clinging fabrics on all of them. All but one of them men. Daggers on three of them, yes. He wondered why only the woman had drawn hers, but even with no metal exposed they were not by any means harmless. A chill travelled his spine, and he realized they reminded him of His Majesty’s Kolat agents, from the blessedly few times he’d had to deal with them.

Their leader – Eshan had to assume he was the leader, from the way the others took their cues from him – pulled out a pale sheet, which Eshan belatedly realized was a folded piece of paper.

‘These are our orders,’ he said, in that bewitching, lilting voice. ‘I am sure you will find them in order, and allow us to be on our way.’

Eshan took the orders, but knew that in nothing but moonlight and a few hints of lamplight from the main street, he would never be able to read them. ‘And I am sure you understand that you will have to come with me to the Magistrate’s Court, while I examine this letter.’

‘No need,’ the green-eyed man said. ‘Caolàn?’

‘Aye,’ one of the other answered; fingers snapped in the dark, and suddenly the dark was much less so. Eshan hissed in a startled breath, not quite avoiding a jerk when a tiny ball of fire appeared in the air above his head, illuminating the paper in his hands as well as most of the green-eyes man and the woman.

Magic. Foreign magic, in his Empire. In his bloody Empire. Clenching the paper hard, he forced himself to ignore that fact for a moment. It was unexpected, surely, but not illegal and for the moment not quite important. Better to take advantage of the light and examine this stranger.

Green eyes, yes, so startlingly green, and hair that seemed to be molten copper, though surely that must have been a trick of the light. Pale skin, on both him and the woman, though she was darker of hair and eyes. She was shorter, too, with a full figure he could see all to clearly under her close-fitting clothes. He could make out brown hair and pale skin on the remaining two, so they were all foreigners. No Kolat, then. From the west, maybe? South-west, through the marshes? No one bothered to breach the mountains these days…

Except maybe desperate criminals, and the mercenaries sent to dispose of them.

‘Go on,’ green-eyes said. ‘Read it.’ Gifting the man with a frown, Eshan nevertheless sheathed his scimitar and examined the orders he’d been given. The papers was folded, and held together with a very official-looking seal. It took a moment, but then he recognized it. Melceirans. But that meant… He glanced up at the floating flame above him, then quickly broke the seal and read the orders. The Melceiran script was hard on his eyes, but the lessons drilled into him so many years ago resurfaced and he picked up speed as he read along. It started with a royal plural, which answered another question, and named the criminal, Dhobhan Veldar, as well as the retrieval squad. Their leader – captain – was identified as Dmitriy Milosz. Not a word of it looked out of place.

‘All right, captain Milosz,’ he said, and the bastard had the gall to smile as he stumbled over the name, ‘as Magistrate of the city Chandakiran, I accept the authenticity of your orders, in His Majesty’s name.’ As he spoke he tucked the paper into his armour. One of the others made a sound of that, but when their captain did not move they quieted down again. ‘I am witness to the success of your mission,’ Eshan continued quietly. ‘Now get the hell out of my Empire.’

‘Mm,’ the woman said. Keira Ballodair, if that was indeed a female name. ‘Grateful, he’s not.’

‘Not on my night off, I’m not, finding four… mercenaries chasing down foreign criminals in my streets,’ Eshan snapped, then taking a deep breath to try and regain his temper. Get them out of here, and make sure they stayed out, that was his next action. Not pick a fight he could not possibly win.

‘Play nice, Keira,’ captain Milosz said, and bowed to Eshan. ‘We thank your Emperor for his understanding. We will not bother you again. God bless.’ Sittva help him, every time those jade eyes flicked away and returned he found himself caught in them. To find such a holy colour in the eyes of a foreigner was… not impossible, no. But jarring.

‘Sittva guide your journey,’ he said, returning the bow. ‘May it be swift and effortless.’

‘No, he doesn’t want us gone at all,’ Keira murmured, switching to lean her other hand on her other hip. Eshan’s eyes followed the movement without his permission.

‘Keira,’ captain Milosz said sharply, then glanced at their two companions. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘Finally!’ the one who’d called the fire said, throwing up his hands. He turned away, taking his flame with him. Keira flashed a last sultry look at Eshan, laced with amusement, then followed. Captain Milosz waited longest, his face plunged once again in shadow but those eyes remaining fixed on Eshan, until Eshan blinked and the man was gone. They were all gone, swallowed by the shadows.

He took a deep, tense breath, leaned against the Darisipudi estate wall for a moment and slammed his fist against it. He took off the way he’d come, no longer enjoying the night air.

Forget his free night. There were bloody Melceiran battle sorcerers in his Empire. In his bloody Empire. He had to report this, and then make sure they truly left, even if it took the damned Kolat and the Sittvara Monks to control them.