I know what the Commandant would say to Faris. Mercy is weakness. Offer it to your enemies and you might as well fall upon your own sword.
The children will be a powerful incentive for the Tribespeople to tell us the truth. I know this. Yet the idea of using them--hurting them--makes me uneasy. I think of the ravaged house in Serra that Cain showed me. The Scholar rebels who burned down that house showed no mercy to the Martial children who lived there.
Are these Tribal children so different? In the end, they are still children. They didn't ask to be a part of this.
I catch Faris's eye. "The Tribesmen are already restless, and we don't have the men to put down another riot. We'll let the children go--"
"Are you insane?" Dex shoots a glare first at Faris then at me. "Don't let them go. Threaten to throw them into ghost wagons and sell them into slavery unless you get some bleeding answers."
"Lieutenant Atrius." I flatten my voice as I address Dex. "Your presence is no longer needed here. Go and divide the remaining men into three groups. One goes with you to search east, in case Veturius makes for the Free Lands. One with me to search south. One stays here to hold the city."
Dex's jaw twitches, his anger at being dismissed warring with a lifetime of obeying the orders of a superior officer. Faris sighs, and Harper watches the exchange with interest. Finally, Dex stalks out, slamming the door behind him.
"Tribesmen value their children above all else," I say to Faris. "Use them as leverage. But don't hurt them. Keep Mamie and Shan alive. If we can't run Elias down, we might be able to use them to lure him in. If you learn anything, send me a message through the drums."
When I leave the barracks to saddle my horse, I find Dex leaning against the stable wall. Before he can tear into me, I turn on him.
"What in the bleeding skies were you doing in there?" I say. "It's not enough that I have one of the Commandant's spies questioning my every move? I need you plaguing me too?"
"He reports on everything you do," Dex says. "But he doesn't question you. Even when he should. You're not focused. You should have seen that riot coming."
"You didn't see it coming." Even to my own ears, I sound like a petulant child.
"I'm not the Blood Shrike. You are." His voice rises, and he takes a level breath.
"You miss him." The edge in his voice fades. "I miss him too. I miss all of them. Tristas. Demetrius. Leander. But they're gone. And Elias is on the run. All we have now, Shrike, is the Empire. And we owe it to the Empire to catch this traitor and execute him."
"I know that--"
"Do you? Then why did you disappear for a quarter hour in the middle of the riot? Where were you?"
I stare at him long enough to make sure my voice doesn't shake. Long enough for him to start thinking that he might have crossed a line.
"Begin your hunt," I say quietly. "Don't leave a single wagon unsearched. If you find him, bring him in."
We are interrupted by a step behind us: Harper, holding two scrolls with broken seals.
"From your father and sister." He doesn't apologize for the fact that he's clearly read the missives.
Blood Shrike,
We are well in Antium, though autumn's chill does not agree with your mother and sisters. I work to solidify the Emperor's alliances but find myself thwarted. Gens Sisellia and Gens Rufia have put forth their own candidates for the throne. They attempt to rally other Gens to their banners. The infighting has killed fifty in the capital, and it's just begun. Wildmen and Barbarians have intensified their border attacks, and the generals on the front are in desperate need of more men.
At least the Commandant has dampened the fire of the Scholar revolution. When she was done, I am told, the River Rei ran red with Scholar blood. She continues the cleansing in the lands north of Silas. Her victories reflect well on our Emperor, but better still upon her own Gens.
I hope to hear news of your success in tracking down the traitor Veturius soon.
Loyal to the end,
Pater Aquillus
P.S. Your mother asks that I remind you to eat.
Livvy's note is shorter.
My dear Hel,
Antium is lonely, with you so far away. Hannah feels it too--though she'd never admit it. His Majesty visits her nearly every day. He also inquires after my welfare, as I am still in isolation with a fever. Once, he even attempted to bypass the guards and visit me. We are lucky our sister is marrying a man so dedicated to our family.
The uncles and Father try desperately to keep the old alliances strong. But the Illustrians do not fear His Majesty the way they should. I wish Father would look to the Plebeians for aid. I believe His Majesty's greatest supporters may lie there.
Father calls for me to hurry, or I'd write more. Be safe, sister.
With love,
Livia Aquilla
My hands shake as I roll the parchment up. Would that I'd received these messages a few days ago. Perhaps I would have realized the cost of failure and taken Elias into custody.
Now, what Father feared has begun. The Gens turn against each other. Hannah is that much closer to marrying the Snake. And Marcus is trying to get to Livia--she never would have mentioned it if she didn't think it was significant.
I crush the letters. Father's message is loud and clear. Find Elias. Give Marcus a victory.
Help us.
"Lieutenant Harper," I say. "Tell the men we move out in five minutes. Dex--"
I can see from the stiff way that he turns to me that he's still angry. He has a right to be.
"You'll handle the interrogations," I say. "Faris will search the desert to the east instead. Let him know. Get me answers, Dex. Keep Mamie and Shan alive in case we need them as bait. Otherwise, do what you must. Even . . . even in regard to the children."
Dex nods, and I quash the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach at speaking the words. I'm Blood Shrike. It is time to show my strength.
*
"Nothing?" The three squad leaders fidget under my scrutiny. One stamps his foot in the sands, antsy as a penned stallion. Behind him, other soldiers in our encampment, some miles north of Nur, watch surreptitiously. "We've searched this blasted desert for six days, and we still have nothing?"
Harper, the only one of the five of us not squinting from the punishing desert wind, clears his throat. "The desert is vast, Blood Shrike," he says. "We need more men."
He's right. We must search thousands of wagons, and I have only three hundred men to do it. I sent messages to Atella's Gap, as well
as to the Taib and Sadh garrisons requesting backup--but none has soldiers to spare.
Strands of hair whip around my face as I pace before the soldiers. I want to send the men out once more before nightfall to search whatever wagons they find. But they are too exhausted.
"There's a garrison a half day's ride north in Gentrium," I say. "If we push hard, we'll make it by nightfall. We can get reinforcements there."
Evening nears as we approach the garrison, poking up over the top of a hill a quarter mile to the north. The outpost is one of the largest in the area and straddles the forested lands of the Empire's interior and the Tribal desert.
"Blood Shrike." Avitas shifts a hand to his bow and slows his horse when the garrison comes into view. "Do you smell that?"
A western wind brings a whiff of something familiar and sour-sweet to my nose. Death. My hand goes to my scim. An attack on the garrison? Scholar rebels? Or a Barbarian sortie, slipping through the Empire unnoticed because of the chaos elsewhere?
I order the men forward, my body coiled, blood rising, yearning toward the battle. Perhaps I should have sent a scout ahead, but if the garrison needs our aid, there's no time for reconnaissance.
We clear the hill, and I slow the men. The road leading to the garrison is littered with the dead and dying. Scholars, not Martials.
Far ahead, beside the garrison's gate, I see a row of six Scholars kneeling. Before them paces a small figure, instantly recognizable, even at a distance.
Keris Veturia.
I nudge my horse forward. What in the bleeding hells is the Commandant doing all the way out here? Has the revolution spread so far?
My men and I pick our way carefully through the bodies left in haphazard piles. Some wear the black of Resistance fighters. But most do not.
So much death, all for a revolution that was doomed before it even began. Anger flares as I stare at the bodies. Didn't the Scholar rebels understand what they would unleash when they revolted? Didn't they realize the death and terror the Empire would rain down upon them?
I swing down from my horse at the garrison gate, a few yards from where the Commandant observes her prisoners. Keris Veturia, her armor splashed with blood, ignores me. So do her men, who flank the Scholar prisoners.
As I draw myself up to reprimand them, Keris plunges her scim into the first Scholar prisoner, a woman who crumples to the ground without so much as a whimper.