Book II. Chapter 118 - Dead brother

Chapter 118

“So you want me to...”

Arkar nodded.

“Come with us.”

“Us?” Ardi frowned.

Arkar gestured toward his jazz bar.

“After I crawled out of the sewer, I sent word to my boys, the ones I know I can count on,” Arkar explained. “They should be gathered at ‘Bruce’s’ by now. But there’s bound to be a rat among them... somebody who reports to Darg, I mean. So, either way, the old fang already knows I’m headed his way, even if he isn’t mixed up in this bastard of a shit wagon. And if he is, he knows it twice over.”

Ardi looked at the wounded, exhausted half-orc whose face was overgrown with coarse stubble. Poorly educated as Arkar was, plain as his speech might sound, he was still the Overseer of one of the Six (or the Five, rather). He had held the post for many years. Arkar was strong, cunning, and clever in his own way. He wouldn’t be able to work out complex functions or use long words, but Ardi didn’t envy the poor devils who had earned Arkar’s wrath.

Somehow, time and again, his path within the dream of the Sleeping Spirits kept bringing Ardan close to dangerous people and... nonhumans.

“If Darg really has sold himself to the Puppet-”

“All right,” Ardan cut in.

Arkar blinked twice and stared at him in surprise.

“You’re not going to hear me out on why you’d be better off coming with me too?”

Ardi shrugged.

“You were at our wedding, Arkar,” Ardan said.

For a second, he thought he should add something. To him, those words explained everything and more, but maybe not to everyone else...

Arkar gave him a short nod. Not so much with his head as with his eyes. Apparently, those words meant the same to him as they did to Ardi.

“You go ahead and...” Ardi looked at his friend’s bloodied clothes, which had been shredded by the gangsters and then cut open by Tess. “...get dressed. I’ll go say a few words.”

“Yeah,” was all Arkar said.

The half-orc leaned heavily on the table and began pulling the rags on over his bandages. He really did try to move carefully, mindful of Tess’ handiwork. As for Tess herself...

Ardi went down the hall, opened the door, and stepped quietly into their bedroom. Tess was sitting in the armchair, reading by the light of a solitary floor lamp. Ardi settled onto the armrest beside her, and without a word, she leaned her head against his forearm. He breathed in the scent of spring flowers blooming beside a stream.

Every time, without a single exception, whenever he found himself beside Tess, he no longer wanted to go anywhere at all. He didn’t want to run. Or drive. Star Magic seemed so foolish then, while all the schemes and intrigues seemed distant and insignificant. He wanted to hold her, breathe in her scent, and slowly sink into an otherworldly half-sleep in which the thoughts inside his head finally fell silent.

Tess had truly become his home.

“I’m going to fall asleep,” she whispered, drawing away from his arm.

Ardi knew that Tess felt the same thing whenever she was near him.

“You’re going with Arkar.” Tess wasn’t asking—she was stating it.

But Ardi still thought that he should answer her to avoid any misunderstandings:

“Yes. I am.”

Tess gave him a small smile. It was a little sad, and a little resigned.

“You know, sometimes I really want to make a scene,” she said softly. “Maybe even shout. Do a little swearing, at least. Then I realize that if you weren’t the way you are, ready to go demons-know-where in the middle of the night, I probably wouldn’t have fallen in love with you at all.”

“I’ll be back soon,” Ardan said. He bent down and gently kissed the top of her head.

“I know,” Tess sighed and turned a page. “I’ll be waiting.”

He gave his wife one last look, then left their bedroom and closed the door behind him. He took his staff, fastened his grimoire to the chains at his belt, and peered into his little box of accumulators. Because of his injury, the supply department had issued him several of them—the paperwork had been signed by Lieutenant Dagdag. He had four for each of his Stars. Ardan slid three into his rings—it was no wonder that military mages’ fingers bore nearly as many rings as an Manish wore just for the hell of it—and one each into the spare mounts on his belt.

And because military accumulators weren’t sold on the open market, while household ones were useless in a fight because they replenished rays at a decidedly leisurely pace, Ardan had no way to calculate what a military mage’s kit might cost the Crown. But judging by the price of training military accumulators, which were capped at two rays per Star and which could be bought on the Spell Market grounds and could not be taken beyond them… A single Blue Star military accumulator probably cost the Crown about two hundred and eleven exes and fifty kso.

Ardi really needed to get his paperwork in order and stop putting Dagdag at risk. Every few months, the man issued him equipment worth several thousand exes.

And yes, one could argue that, given the Crown’s monopoly on producing military accumulators, they actually cost it no more than the price of making them, but...

Ardi sighed.

These were stupid thoughts, and this was exactly the wrong time to have them. And it was all because of John Brolid’s predicament and the fact that by tomorrow... Ardi looked at the clock on the wall.

The fact that thisvery same evening, John would get his bank loan, and he and Ardan would go and place the order for the equipment they needed. Including the spares. Nearly thirty thousand exes were riding on that ill-fated coin toss. And almost a thousand more was already hanging from his fingers and belt, not counting his grimoire.

There’d been a time when even fifty exes had seemed like an astronomical sum to him, one utterly beyond his reach. But who was he kidding? He still thought that was a lot of money. Despite all the royalties, his Black House pay and bonuses, and his student stipend, Ardi hadn’t forgotten what money was worth or the labor most people put into earning it.

“Ready?” Arkar asked, walking up to Ardi, who had already pulled on his cloak.

Ardan looked at the half-orc. He was wearing a tattered suit and a coat so filthy it had gone nearly gray.

“If anything, I’m the one who should be asking whether you’re ready.”

“So don’t ask, then.” Arkar winked, then grimaced in pain.

He put on his fashionable hat, while Ardi... went out bareheaded, as always. By now, he had even grown somewhat used to this reality that was still new to him. Passersby did look at him askance, especially other men, who disapproved of his uncovered head, but Ardan had grown used to that, too.

He closed the front door and, out of habit, activated the stationary shield. He was powering it using the household Ley-wiring behind the building owner’s back. They paid a set rate for their Ley regardless, rather than a fee based on how much energy they drew, which was something Parliament wanted to revise in the near future. Then the two of them went down the stairs to the ground floor. The concierge’s desk stood empty tonight. The old woman’s grandson had fallen ill, and she had left to help her family without having time to find a replacement. None of the tenants had complained. Maybe they were lucky, or maybe it was just a coincidence, but the people in their building were pleasant enough. They didn’t put on airs, at least.

Limping slightly, Ardan was the first to step out of the building. The cold, damp night air gave his face an eager lick, and Ardan answered it with a small smile. At least there was something pleasant about this unplanned adventure. Then again, if the adventure itself had been mapped out in advance and arranged neatly on a shelf, then it would’ve no longer been an adventure at all, but...

“And there they are,” Arkar said, his tusks flashing.

As they crossed the sleepy street drowning in slush, orcs spilled out of the dark bar and out onto the street. Dozens of orcs. Every one of them wore a black coat and a black suit without a vest. Some were scarred, others tattooed from knuckles to eyebrows. Most carried brass knuckles, spiked clubs, and knives. Several even had revolver holsters hidden beneath their clothes.

“Arkar.”

“Overseer.”

“Arkar.”

That was how they greeted their leader. One of them saw Arkar’s condition, went back into “Bruce’s,” and soon came out with a brand-new jacket and a clean, intact coat. Without a second thought, Arkar tossed his ruined clothes into the nearest garbage can and put the new jacket on directly over his bloody bandages. The lack of a shirt and his torn pants didn’t trouble him in the slightest.

Draping the coat over his shoulders like a cloak, he swept his gaze over everyone gathered there.

“Anyone who wants to stay, stay. I won’t hold it against you. And when this is over, your place and your share will still be here.”

Not one of the nearly fifty orcs so much as moved. Ardi shivered a little. By orc standards, Arkar was a little taller than average, which meant that among them, there were some orcs who’d reached the two-hundred-and-thirty-centimeter mark, or even the two-hundred-and-thirty-five one. Some were even close to weighing a full three hundred kilos.

Ardan, who was accustomed to looking over the tops of other people’s heads whenever he stood in a crowd, felt distinctly uneasy.

“Then let’s roll, boys.” Arkar whistled. “Orak Han-da!”

“Orak Han-da!” Fifty orcs echoed the fierce battle cry.

Ardan flinched slightly. Even after all this time, those words, which did not belong solely to the Shanti’Ra, stirred a deep unease in him. It was so strong that the Stars in his mind burned a little brighter, as though Ardan were preparing to cast a spell.

The procession of orcs dressed in black moved toward the bar’s inner courtyard, where they split up among the cars. As always, Ardi climbed into Arkar’s personal car. It was a very roomy, three-year-old model that had been fashionable in Baliero once, with a reinforced engine and a greater number of gears than usual.

Ardi took the key from Arkar and turned it in the ignition. The car, coated in gleaming lacquer that didn’t have much longer left to gleam, growled low in its belly and spat out several little clouds of smog.

“What?” Ardan asked. He could feel Arkar’s stare upon him with every inch of his skin.

“I was just thinking, Matabar. After all the things I’ve lived through, nothing frightens me more than when you’re behind the wheel.”

Ardi slowly turned toward Arkar, who had both hands clamped around the door handle and was pressed into the back of the seat. Just as slowly, Ardi lowered the handbrake, depressed the clutch, shifted out of neutral, and pulled away.

“Well, at least we didn’t croak right away,” the half-orc breathed out, relieved, though his face was still pale.

“Arkar, go to…”

Ardan’s upbringing kept him from finishing that sentence even though he wanted to do it so badly...

* * *

Old Town saw them off in silence. The lamps along the embankment burned at half strength. The bleak evening had crossed its own point of no return, and now deep night was slowly, reluctantly creeping over the city. The Ley-lamps along the main avenues still burned with a steady, bluish light, but the side streets had already sunk into half-darkness. Only the gas lamps, their reddish tongues flickering, clung to the last remnants of the day that had slipped away into yesterday.

Ardi drove carefully with both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road, and his back was as rigid as a student of the Grand’s Military Faculty during an inspection. The paving stones gleamed with ice that had thawed during the day and frozen again by nightfall. The studded tires of the Kid, which was what Arkar called his car despite the very different name on the hood, scraped over it with a monotonous, almost soothing crunch.

“Farther left,” Arkar grumbled when Ardi nearly clipped a lamppost with the side mirror on the turn near Duke’s Bridge. “Left, Matabar. That’s it. Good.”

Arkar sat leaning against the door, one hand pressed to his left side. Judging by the way he winced from time to time and shifted his hand, the bandages under his jacket were already soaked through. But he did not complain, and Ardi didn’t ask about it. There were some things orcs simply didn’t talk about. Pain was one of them.

They passed Duke’s Bridge and turned onto Princess Avenue, which was wide and empty at this hour. It was lined with bare lindens whose black branches scratched at the low sky. The buildings here still belonged to Old Town: stately, with porticoes and colonnades, and dark, arched gateways where you half-imagined either a draft or the shadow of a caretaker asleep at his post. Before long, though, the facades began to shrink and lose their molding, and soon, the avenue became a wide road lined with simpler two-and-three-story houses: brick, without columns, with tin roofs and chimneys belching white steam.

“You know what I’m thinking about, Matabar?” Arkar said, watching the facades drift past the window. “Those tusks driving behind us.”

Ardan glanced in the rearview mirror. A line of cars stretched out behind them—eleven pairs of headlights lined up in a column.

“What about them?”

“It’s not as if they chose any of this.” Arkar grimaced and shifted the hand pressed to his side. “Not one of them woke up this morning thinking: ‘You know what? Let me drive off in the middle of the night to fuck-knows-where and sort out who screwed who.’ They lived. They worked. Well, they worked...” Arkar snorted. “They pinched... stole, I mean, from whoever they were supposed to steal from. They ran protection on whoever they were supposed to. Went to their girls. Drank. Maybe some of them even read a book before bed... though I doubt it. Then… BAM. The Overseer comes bursting in, covered head to toe in blood, and says, ‘Boys, let’s go.’ And they go. Because I said so.”

“You gave them a choice,” Ardan pointed out without taking his eyes off the road. An intersection appeared ahead, and he began braking well in advance, trying to slow without a jolt.

“I did.” Arkar nodded. “And not a single one of them took me up on it. Because the choice itself was crooked. Staying means showing that you’re not with the Overseer. And if I come back alive, that crooked choice turns into a crooked fate. No matter what I might say afterward, the others will still look at you sideways... So they came not because they wanted to. They came because not coming was scarier.”

The city ended. The last houses, low and squat, with little gardens in the front and wooden fences, fell away behind them, and with no transition at all, the road plunged abruptly into darkness. Bits of woodland stretched along both sides. Sparse birches, their trunks pale in the headlights, pressed close to the aspens. Between them, untouched snow ran off into the dark. The road grew narrower and more winding. Ardan shifted into second, feeling the wheels slip on the packed snow.

“Sometimes, I think people invented fate,” Arkar went on, leaning his head against the headrest and half-closing his eyes, “because it’s easier that way. It’s easier to blame fate than admit that your life isn’t entirely your own. It never was. You think you’re the one deciding. You think you’re choosing. And then someone up above… The Emperor, a general, even some banker who’s grown fat… He makes one decision. Just one. And millions of lives go tumbling head over heels. War doesn’t begin because a soldier wanted to go to war. It begins because someone in an office jabbed a finger at a map. And the soldier? What about him? He was living. Building something. Dreaming about something. Maybe he’d been planning to ask his girl to marry him. And then gunpowder. Screams. And that’s it. And his girl waits. Or she doesn’t. And he’s in a trench. And then he’s in the ground.”

Arkar fell silent and grimaced in pain, or maybe he did so because of his own words. Ardan drove without speaking. The strips of woodland thickened, and the trees stood closer together. Before long, the road led them into the forest itself. This was a real forest, old and heavy. It had been called the Royal Forest ever since the first Galessian Princes had hunted there. Century-old oaks and elms stretched black branches over the road like gnarled hands, weaving them into intricate patterns. Snow still lay on them in broad sheets, and because of the headlights, it seemed like the car was traveling through a tunnel that was white above them and black along the sides.

“The Firstborn call it the Dream of the Sleeping Spirits,” Ardi reminded him quietly, carefully guiding the Kid through another bend.

“Thanks for reminding me.” Arkar grunted with obvious sarcasm and raised a finger. “It’s a pretty name for the same thing. The dream of the Sleeping Spirits… As if someone big and invisible is asleep, dreaming us. And our lives are his dreams. And we don’t control one demon-damned thing, because go on, try controlling somebody else’s dream. Convenient, isn’t it? It’s not you, not the general, not the king who’s to blame. It’s the Sleeping Spirit. He dreamed it all up that way.” Ardi opened his mouth to correct him, then immediately closed it again. “And what about us? We just live inside somebody’s shitty dream…”

“You don’t agree with that?” Ardi asked without taking his eyes off the road.

The headlights pulled one meter after another from the darkness, and each new stretch looked almost indistinguishable from the one before it. It had the same snow. The same trees. The same impenetrable night, which was still young.

“What I don’t agree with is that any of this comforts anyone,” Arkar answered. “The little guy. I hate that phrase. There’s no such thing as a little guy, Matabar. Or a little Firstborn, I suppose... There are people who’ve been made little. And that’s a big difference.”

He fell silent again and stared out the window for a long time, watching the trees drift past.

“And what got you thinking about all this?” Ardi asked, slowing before an especially-sharp bend. He pressed in the clutch. Shifted into first. Then he let it out smoothly. The Kid obediently slowed. “The Congress?”

Arkar didn’t answer. Ardan didn’t repeat the question. He knew the half-orc well enough by now to understand that when Arkar fell silent, he was choosing his words. And Arkar rarely chose his words. Usually, they spilled out of him on their own.

The forest parted for a moment as the road crossed a clearing drenched in moonlight. The snow there looked utterly untouched and sparkling, and for a second, it grew so bright that Ardan could make out the outlines of hills in the distance. Then the forest closed in around them again, and the darkness settled back into its old spot.

“Me and Arseny,” Arkar said at last, and his voice changed. It became quieter. Duller. “It was... about thirty-five years ago. Maybe thirty-four. We were stationed on the third line of trenches then, across the river. It was a regimental camp. Mud everywhere. Nothing to eat. The wagon train had gotten bogged down, the roads had washed out all the way to the demons’ whores, and our quartermasters... pinched... took half our supplies with them, even before we pulled back from our previous position. And there we were. For a week, maybe even longer. Chewing on our belts and swearing. And two kilometers farther inland, there was a village. A tiny little thing. Twenty roofs.”

Arkar fell silent for a while.

“Arseny said, ‘Come on, fang-face, maybe we can trade for something.’ So we went. Just the two of us. No orders needed, and we didn’t ask permission, either. We were up to our ears in mud, hungrier and meaner than that creepy Striga. That village was...”

He grimaced again, but Ardi still couldn’t tell whether it was because of his wounds or the memories.

“Ordinary people lived there. Little people, like I said. With their vegetable gardens. Their goats. When we arrived, they weren’t even afraid of us. They fed us until it was hard to breathe. Just like that. Without any kind of trade needed. Some old woman brought over a pot of kasha. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was hot, with butter, burning your tongue and the roof of your mouth, and you’d still keep eating it. To this day, I’d choose that kasha over any dinner at the Pelican.”

Ardan listened in silence, guiding the car past another curve in the forest road.

“And then I met someone there.” Arkar said it as though he were confessing to something shameful. “Not that kind, not one of the... not a roadside... Well, she wasn’t a streetwalker, I mean. An ordinary girl. The blacksmith’s daughter. She was a quiet sort. Had a braid as thick as my wrist. Her palms were callused all over. And her eyes...” Arkar lowered his eyelids and smiled a little. “Her eyes were like a calf’s. Big, and always a little surprised. She talked to me as if I weren’t an orc in a dirty uniform but... I don’t know. Just... someone. Not a soldier, not a half-blood. Just Arkar.”

He fell silent. The forest outside the window kept rustling. The wind stirred the treetops, and snow trickled down quietly from the branches.

“I stayed there another three days on top of that. The Armondians had already pulled back, so there wasn’t much to do in the trench except bail water out by the bucketful. Arseny covered for me. Told the commander I was out scouting. Three days, Matabar. I slept on straw, ate that same kasha, and thought… what if I stayed? Just go over the hill... desert, I mean. I’d build myself a house, get a goat. Maybe even two. A couple of piglets. Marry that quiet girl. Work the blacksmith’s bellows, or help however I could.”

“Why didn’t you stay?” Ardi asked quietly.

Arkar remained silent for a long time.

“Because I knew the military engineers would be there in a week. The blacksmith, his daughter, and the goats, all of them would be evicted. And they’d twist me up like a ram’s horn and send me to the mines for going AWOL. There’s your fate, Matabar. There’s your dream of the Sleeping Spirits. I didn’t stay, and it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. It was because somebody in some distant office had already decided that the village wasn’t worth a damn and the fortification lines had to be extended. And somehow, he didn’t ask my opinion about it.”

The half-orc turned toward the window.

“The Congress,” he added dully. “You asked about the Congress. Yes, Matabar. The Congress. Once again, it’s somebody in some fucking office running his shitty finger over the map. And this time, it’s millions of little people who’ll wake up in the morning and won’t understand why their lives are no longer theirs. And you. And me. And Tess. Bazhen. Boris. Elena. Even your Captain Pnev and that fat, good-natured fellow from the desert. Every one of us will do what we’re told. And we’ll comfort ourselves by saying that this is simply our fate.”

Ardan didn’t answer him. The road bent one last time and then ran straight. Ahead, a long, level avenue came into view, lined with old lindens whose trunks looked so thick that two people could not have encompassed them even while working together…

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At the end of the avenue, the headlights encountered the gates.

They were massive and made of wrought iron. They had two cast-iron leaves, each three human heights tall, with twisted bars woven into patterns. Not floral, not decorative, but angular and harsh, with sharp curls like the orc alphabet. Split oak logs had been set into the spaces between the bars, darkened by time and damp, and fitted so tightly that you couldn’t slip a finger between them. It wasn’t so much a gate as an allusion to a medieval wall.

But on the other side... On the other side, everything was different.

Ardi stopped the car and peered through the seam between the leaves of the gate. Beyond the cast-iron fence, beyond the neat lawn cleared of snow, lamps burned along the stone paths. Dozens of them. Ley-lamps on wrought-iron posts, arranged with geometric precision, bathed the grounds in even, gentle light.

The paths winding between the lamps led up to a building. It was large, two stories tall, with a broad facade, high windows, and a covered veranda encircling the whole ground floor. It wasn’t a palace, but something close to one. It had stables on the left, a side wing on the right, and a fountain before the main entrance. It was currently frozen and heaped with snow, but it was still undoubtedly a fountain.

This was the last place anyone would assume was an orc’s den. And even less so the den of the leader of the Orcish Jackets.

“What?” Arkar asked, noticing his look.

“Nothing,” Ardan answered.

Arkar snorted.

“Darg likes beautiful things, Matabar. Always has. Or do you think an orc has to be covered in dirt, with a bone between his teeth?”

Ardi remained silent. That was exactly what he had been thinking. Also, if he were being honest, that was very often exactly how things were. Well, except for the bone.

“Oh, get lost, Ard,” Arkar said with a grunt. “Just because I got myself covered in shit today doesn’t mean...”

The half-orc waved it away and muttered something.

The gates began to open, slowly and heavily, with the dull creaking of the wrought-iron hinges. Beyond them, two orcs stood on the path with lanterns in their hands.

And several dozen more were gradually coming out of the estate and into the open.

Ardi pressed the clutch and started forward. They drove slowly onto the estate grounds. They did so unhurriedly and carefully, threading between the shadows that had embraced the yellowish circles of light scattered across the cobblestones of the paths that had been swept clean.

Ardan parked near one of the sculpted shrubs, killed the engine, and swept his gaze over the crowd gathered outside. Orcs loyal to Ordargar emerged from the main building and the outbuildings beneath the light of the not-quite-full moon and the barely-visible stars. There were far more of them than Arkar had brought with him.

There were maybe seventy souls, or somewhere around that. Which meant that tonight, in the suburbs sprawling for many, many kilometers northwest of the capital, nearly the whole Orcish Jackets gang had gathered here.

“Ahgrat.” Ardi opened his grimoire to the page with his only Blue Star spell, the only one he was even remotely confident he could cast.

Arkar shifted his revolver holster into a position from which he could easily draw at any moment, then fastened a sheathed blade to his wrist. After that, he glanced sidelong at Ardi.

“Time was, you didn’t need the book, Matabar.”

“I haven’t had time to hone my Blue Star military magic, orc,” Ardi snapped back, though without much conviction.

Blue Star military magic had turned out to be not merely considerably harder, but literally an order of magnitude harder than anything Ardi had ever dealt with before. He was making progress little by little, but he had still needed to modify the one and only multipurpose military spell he had managed to copy during the past month and a half.

Naturally, it was Fire Lash, the spell Ardi had seen Davos cast. Perhaps that live demonstration was exactly why Ardi, making use of his unlimited access to the Grand’s library, had requested a treatise devoted to that particular spell.

An entire treatise!

Four hundred and forty-nine pages devoted to a single spell. At first, Ardi had thought that they’d simply chosen a font that was five times larger than the standard one, but... no.

Modifying the Fire Lash into what Ardan called the Ice Tail had taken him another three weeks. Three whole weeks full of failed experiments where liters of ink had been spilled, a kilogram of chalk used… along with several rags and buckets of water he’d used to clean the graphite board, and Sleeping Spirits only knew how much sweat he’d shed. Probably at least as much as the tea he’d drunk for his headaches.

After those weeks he’d spent laboring over the schematics, Ardi had even more respect for human Star Mages. Due to the existence of exhaustion and the way their concentration gradually frayed, it was astonishing how much willpower and determination they surely possessed to achieve their results.

In the end, the Ice Tail had become not only the sole Blue Star spell in Ardi’s arsenal, but his costliest as well. It took three rays from his Red Star, four from his Green Star, and another four from his Blue Star. Then he’d done a couple of weeks of practice and, along the way, more revision and fine-tuning, and... Ardi still hadn’t managed to hammer it into his subconscious the way he had the others.

“I can’t say you’ve made me happy, Ardi,” Arkar forced out through clenched fangs and tusks, and began laboriously crawling out into the open.

Holding his grimoire in front of him, which was now open to the basic diagram for the Ice Tail, Ardan hurried after him. By this time, Arkar’s men... or rather, his orcs, had already spilled outside as well. They stood in a semicircle, making a pointed show of the weapons they held in their hands. Ordargar’s loyalists hurried to do exactly the same. Only instead of clubs, brass knuckles, knives, and the occasional revolver, many of them had armed themselves with hunting rifles and even a couple of military rifles.

Arkar swept his gaze over them and, without the slightest hesitation, stepped to the front. He walked into the very center of the circle that had formed, its perimeter strung with enormous, hulking orcs whose stone-hard muscles bulged like boulders even beneath their autumn coats and leather cloaks.

In his Star Anatomy lectures, Professor Kovertsky sometimes speculated about which mechanisms of evolution had given orcs bodies like these, but right now, Ardan had no time to reminisce about his classes at the Grand. Over the past month and a half, not counting the Practical Military Exercises, he hadn’t missed a single lecture. His work and the investigations at the Black House had, as Milar had put it, “hit a wall.”

Standing close to Arkar and feeling dozens of distinctly merciless stares upon him, Ardi... understood what Edward had meant. He was not troubled in the least by the rifles, or the revolvers, or even the simple fact that there were several dozen orcs here. One Ice Tail would be quite enough to protect Ardi even from two machine guns. Not to mention the fact that, to a Blue Star military magic spell, seventy orcs were essentially no different from seventy... plush teddy bears.

“Hello, Arkar.”

Ordargar moved slowly through the crowd. Ardi remembered what the orc had looked like when he had seen him for the second time ever.

Just as back then, in “Bruce’s” after the attack, his left tusk, which protruded from his massive lower jaw, looked larger than his right, which had been broken long ago, but was still sharpened. His bald little skull had never known the weight of hair, and in place of his left ear, a human prosthesis had been attached to it, making for a somewhat strange sight.

Because of his sheer size, Ordargar inspired primal dread by merely existing. That was why, as far as Ardan himself could remember, he had come to “Bruce’s” only once before the ambush. And even on that single occasion, he had gone into a private room, spoken there with Arkar, and then left again in a long, outrageously expensive car. It had been the kind of car one didn’t always see even among the truly rich.

As always, he was the only one in the gang who wore a vest. But he did so without a jacket. That was his distinguishing mark as their boss.

Ordargar limped. He came down heavily on his left leg, the one a grenade blast had torn away right up to the knee. Except... Ardi had repeatedly seen how the Cloaks and soldiers limped when they’d been left crippled and dependent on prostheses and leather straps that forever rubbed their skin raw whenever they walked.

The leader of the Orcish Jackets limped nothing like that. His gait was much lighter and considerably smoother. It looked as though he didn’t have a prosthesis at all, but a... sprained ankle. Ordargar was clearly faking his limp. And not very skillfully. This meant that he hadn’t yet grown fully used to whatever was hidden beneath his pant leg.

“Arkar...”

“I see it, Ard,” Arkar ground out through clenched teeth, his voice venomous. “I see it...”

None of the half-orc’s fury was aimed at Ardi. It was all directed at the one approaching them.

“Ordargar,” Arkar said in a hollow voice, then looked past him. “Kargurkaar.”

One of the orcs, the one with greenish skin, gave only a brief shrug in response. It was like he was saying: “Nothing personal. I was just carrying out an order.”

“You always were hard to kill, Arkar,” Ordargar sighed and, setting his cane down before him, a cane that was more like a club, leaned on it with both hands. “What do you want, Arkar?”

“To find out why.”

“Why... what, Overseer?” Ordargar raised his voice and, looking over the heads of Ardan and Arkar, fixed his gaze on the faces of the orcs who had come with them. “Find out why my Overseer, my right hand, my sworn younger brother, decided to seek vengeance for the Overseer of the Hammers? Zakzarazar, I believe they killed your friend last spring in a shootout, didn’t they? And you, Gunbarbaar, wasn’t it your house they burned down two years ago? And all of you decided to support Arkar, who sold himself to the Hammers?”

Whispers began to rise among the orcs on both sides, along with a booming, deep-throated growl.

“Me and Arseny-”

“We!” Ordargar cut him off. “We, Arkar! That is all I needed to hear from you.”

Sleeping Spirits... Ordargar stood a whole head taller than any other orc. He was nearly two and a half meters tall. And the muscles in his biceps looked thicker than Ardi’s waist. How had the warriors of Gales ever fought behemoths like these?

“You know what I’m trying to say, Darg,” Arkar replied, refusing to yield. It seemed like the hundred and twenty other orcs gathered around them didn’t trouble him in the least. “Me and Arseny stopped a bloodbath that would have buried our entire gang.”

“You don’t know that, Arkar,” Ordargar said, giving him a calm jerk of his chin. “All I know is this: you sold out. Sold out to the humans. And that is why you brought this little snot with a staff here with you. As if he could somehow manage to frighten me.”

“Ardi’s not human.”

“He’s no more human than you are, half-blood.” Ordargar spat at his feet. “I took you in! I gave you a roof over your head! I gave you a family! I gave your miserable existence a purpose and meaning! And this is how you repay me! Me, your own older brother, who-”

“You’re no brother of mine, old fang.” Arkar shook his head. “You never were. Look around you, Darg!” Arkar pulled his long knife from its sheath and swept it in a wide arc at everything surrounding them. “Is this how the orcs of the steppe live? You accuse me of selling myself to humans, but what about you? You, who’ve surrounded yourself with luxury? You, who live among human fat cats? You, who go to their balls and dinners. You, who move in their circles, forgetting who you are and what you are.”

“It’s not your place to tell me who I am, half-blood!” For the first time, something resembling actual fury flashed in Ordargar’s yellow eyes. “If not for me, you would’ve been walking the paths of the Sleeping Spirits long ago!”

“And for that, I’m grateful to you, Darg.” Arkar nodded. “Always have been, always will be. But I remember a very different orc. I remember you shielding Zakagraz from the guards’ bullets with your own body. I remember you throwing yourself into the fire to pull out Onzoha’s and Dagzazazar’s children. I remember that you were ready to do anything to help your own. To make our clan prosper. To-”

“So you could reach into my pocket?” Ordargar narrowed his eyes at him and immediately let out a guttural laugh. “Or did you think that I didn’t know a thing, boy? That I’m blind and old and can’t see you stealing from your own people?!”

This time, the whispers on both sides turned into furious cries and the drum-like thunder of clenched fists striking puffed-out chests.

“And who was I stealing for, Darg?!” Arkar shouted over all the surrounding noise. “Go on, then! Finish the accusation! Who was I stealing for out of that rotten pocket of yours?!”

Ordargar frowned and said nothing.

“I swear it on the paths of our ancestors, brothers!” Arkar swept his gaze over everyone present, briefly turning his back to Ordargar. “I took exes from Ordargar to give them to the Conclave! To help the ones in need! The ones who can’t look after themselves!”

The pounding and shouting gradually began to subside. Everyone there knew that Arkar would never swear by the paths of his ancestors without a good cause, which meant that he was telling the truth.

Not every orc could hear the rhythm of another’s heart, but those who could told the ones standing beside them that Arkar wasn’t lying. And those orcs passed the word on.

“You’ve gone soft, Arkar,” Ordargar hissed, still scowling. “Those who cannot survive must die! That is the law of the steppes.”

The orcs fell silent.

For a while, Arkar studied Ordargar in that silence. He felt as though he were looking at someone else entirely, not the man whom he had lived side by side with for most of his life.

“And what has that law led to, Ordargar?” Arkar tilted his head to one side. “And wasn’t it you yourself who taught us… Taught every single one of us! That the old laws of the steppes were wrong. That if we failed to support one another in an hour of need, we only made ourselves weaker, not stronger! Weren’t you ready to do anything to help everyone in our clan? To ensure that everyone would have-”

“I was wrong,” Ordargar interrupted him again. “But now I see the path. And that path-”

Not allowing the gang leader to finish, Arkar tore his coat and jacket off, then ripped away his bandages as well. Blood gushed from his wounds, but Arkar didn’t give a damn. Turning in the light, he let the others get a good look at the horrific scars left behind by his battle against the demon in the temple of the Old Gods.

“This is who our Chief sold himself to, brothers!” Arkar roared loud enough for all to hear. “Remember the stories of the Elder Mothers, brothers! Remember the horrors and legends of the past, because I swear by the ancestors, I saw them with my own eyes! I saw what Star Mages and the Aean’Hane are capable of! I saw all their madness made real in fire and pain! I swear it on the paths of the ancestors: I have seen an Anhak’Za’Radk, and I have fought it!”

Some of the orcs recoiled. Some began whispering prayers in the language of the steppe orcs. Others simply went pale slowly and lowered their weapons.

In the language of the steppe orcs, Anhak’Za’Radk meant, if adapted into Galessian: “The One Who Came for Your Soul From the Darkness.” That was what the orcs called the Homeless Fae and demons.

“And Ordargar sold himself to their chiefs! He betrayed every single one of us! Everything we believe in! Everything we are, brothers!” Arkar turned around and pointed his blade at Ordargar’s chest. “Just as the Elder Mothers taught us, Darkness came knocking at his heart! And the Darg we all know, poisoned by human avarice and greed, lost his battle against it! Ordargar is no more! He is only a servant of the Anhak’Za’Radk! And when I tear out his heart, we will go into mourning and sing songs of the great warrior Ordargar, who fell in battle against those we had thought to be mere fabrications and fairy tales! Because what stands before us now is only a puppet! His spirit is already with the Sleeping Spirits! He is singing with the wolves and dancing with our great ancestors beside the Eternal Fires!”

A heavy, oppressive silence hung in the air, broken only by Ordargar’s chuckling.

“You’ve lost your mind, Overseer,” the gang’s leader said quietly. “An Anhak’Za’Radk? A puppet? Come to your senses! Apparently, you’ve been sniffing the same Angel Dust Arseny was inhaling when he decided to abandon his human beliefs for the room and bed of a human whore!”

Arkar gave him a crooked, slightly sad, decidedly carnivorous smile.

“No one except for me, the Head of the Hammers, and those who bought off the guards’ detective knew that Arseny was found in a prostitute’s room, Ordargar! No one! As far as everyone else knew, he died in the lobby of the Black Lotus!” Arkar shifted the point of his knife toward Ordargar’s left leg. “Show us what you’ve got there, Darg! Show us what you’re hiding from us!”

For a while, Ordargar stared silently into Arkar’s eyes. Then the two of them said a single, deafening word in unison:

“Larr’rrak!”

They threw themselves at one another at almost the same time.

Ordargar struck first. His blade flashed down in a heavy chopping motion, all of his monstrous weight behind the blow. Arkar didn’t block. He stepped back and to the left, letting the blade pass by his shoulder, then he ducked beneath Ordargar’s outstretched arm and slashed his knife along Ordargar’s torso. The blade scraped across his vest, tore through the fabric, and reached skin; the cut was shallow, but blood immediately sprayed onto the ground. Ordargar didn’t even flinch. The enormous orc pivoted on his left leg, the same leg that should’ve ended in a prosthesis, and punched Arkar in the jaw.

The impact sounded like someone slamming a sledgehammer into a sack of sand. Arkar’s head jerked sideways. Scarlet droplets fanned out from his split lip. Standing six paces away, Ardi involuntarily tightened his fingers around his staff. Had a blow like that landed on sheet iron, the material would’ve caved in like cheap foil.

Arkar held his ground. He swayed but didn’t fall. He spat out pink, viscous saliva and bared his teeth. His fangs flashed in the light of the Ley-lamps, and a low, guttural growl burst from his throat, making the ears of the orcs standing nearest to him twitch. The Overseer shifted his knife into a reverse grip and sank into a crouch. He went low, like an animal, almost touching the ground with the knuckles of his other hand. And then he hurled himself forward.

His hands blurred into a series of rapid strikes. He moved quickly and precisely, with almost no windup. Arkar struck from below, aiming for the thigh, the groin, the stomach, any place where even a shallow wound could really weaken his opponent. At times, Ordargar fought him off by sacrificing his forearm; when luck favored him, he turned Arkar’s blade aside with his own knife; and every now and then, he retreated. But whenever he retreated, he did so evenly and calmly. Too evenly and calmly. Not once did he stumble, not once did he lose his balance. His left leg moved with the same confidence as his right.

What kind of prosthesis could do that? Ardan had the feeling that he already knew the answer to that question.

Meanwhile, the orcs around them were beating their fists against their chests and singing a rough, harsh, rhythmic song:

“Ud gar ud,

Ud ud!

Adz zag ud,

Adz zag!

Ud zad ud!

Ud Ud!”

Ardi involuntarily shivered again. Over a hundred throats thundered, shaking the night sky like living war drums. He could barely imagine this “battle song” being shouted not by a hundred, but by a thousand... ten thousand orc warriors… And they would be accompanied not by fists hammering their chests, but by actual drums.

At last, Arkar landed a solid hit on his opponent. His blade split the skin along the outside of Ordargar’s thigh. A long, ragged cut flared in the lamplight, dark blood gushing from it. Ordargar growled. The sound was low and brief, reminiscent of a disturbed bear. Not wanting to lose the initiative, the enormous orc counterattacked.

His knife flashed out, going for his opponent’s throat. Arkar jerked back, but the tip of the blade caught his chin, slicing his skin open from jaw to ear. Blood ran down his neck and streamed over his bare chest, mingling with what was already seeping from wounds whose stitches had, by some miracle, not burst.

Tess had done a splendid job stitching him up, after all...

Ordargar caught Arkar’s knife arm and yanked it toward himself. Instead of resisting, Arkar went with the pull and struck Ordargar in the nose with his forehead. An unpleasant, sharp crunch sounded. Ordargar shook his head and loosened his grip. Arkar immediately seized this opportunity. He tore his arm free and jabbed his knife into his opponent’s side. The blade went in almost halfway, then glanced off a rib. Ordargar growled and answered with a knee to the stomach.

Arkar folded in half, and a fist immediately came crashing down from above. It struck right below his shoulder, where Tess had put in the stitches about an hour and a half earlier.

A wet, squelching sound slapped against Ardi’s ears. Arkar crashed down onto one knee. The stitches, which had held until now thanks to the miracle of Tess’ skill, burst. Ardan saw a brown stain, greedy for flesh, spread across the half-orc’s back. Arkar wheezed, but rose. He rose, bared his teeth, and growled again. This time, he did so more quietly, with rolling rasps and a bubbling sound coming from somewhere deep inside his rib cage.

They circled each other. Both were in low stances, both of them had their fangs bared and tusks thrust forward, and both of them were spattered with their own blood and each other’s. But by now, the difference between them was visible to the naked eye.

Arkar’s body looked heavier.

His blows kept getting slower. His legs were dragging and looked as if, at any moment, one might get caught on the other. And the knife in his hand trembled slightly; his muscles were giving out. Ordargar, meanwhile, was still moving as though the fight had only just begun. His wounds, and there were already four or five of them, were bleeding, but did not seem to hinder him. He was still bigger, fresher and angrier. And it seemed like he no longer cared about continuing to fake his limp.

Arkar attacked. He made a straight thrust at Ordargar’s chest and Ordargar knocked it aside with his knife. Steel clanged against steel. The orc boss immediately caught hold of Arkar’s wrist with his free hand. And, with a smile full of bloodthirsty excitement, he squeezed. Ardi heard a creak. Bone or joint, something in there bent beneath the fierce pressure of those fingers, each of which was as thick as half an adult human’s wrist.

Arkar bared his teeth in pain, tossed his knife into his other hand, and slashed Ordargar across the forearm. Ordargar released his grip, stepped back, and immediately struck Arkar in the chest with an open palm.

The hit sent Arkar back two steps. The half-orc staggered, and his left leg buckled beneath him. This was the same leg that had acquired a thigh wound even before his journey through the sewers. Blood was running over Arkar now, not in trickles, but in whole streams. It gushed from his back, from his chin, from his split lip, and from his many wounds that had opened again. He was breathing heavily. The knife in his hand dropped lower, like his arm had almost no strength left.

Ordargar saw all of this as well. He saw it and didn’t rush. He waited calmly, patiently, like a predator that knows its prey can no longer escape. Ergar had taught Ardan to fight a drawn-out duel the same way if he failed to kill his target with one single strike. Don’t take risks. Don’t fling yourself headlong at another’s fangs and claws. Sometimes, all you had to do was wait, and then the enemy’s heart, driving blood through his body and out through his wounds, would do all the work for you.

Arkar had no time left.

He threw himself forward, blurring through the air with one last, desperate rush. His knife was aimed squarely at his enemy’s throat. Ordargar leaned to one side and the blade passed by him. Then he drove his fist into Arkar’s temple. Arkar’s head jerked.

His legs tangled under him.

Arkar was still standing, but more because of inertia, which had stopped him in place. Maybe it was also thanks to stubbornness, or maybe it was out of sheer habit that he was standing. But he could no longer fight back.

Without giving him a chance to recover, Ordargar stepped forward and swept both of Arkar’s legs out from under him with one whipping sweep of his shin.

The Overseer went flying forward. His knife slipped from his weakened grip. And before his body could touch the ground, Ordargar clasped both fists together, raised them above his head, and brought them down hard against Arkar’s back.

The blow drove the half-orc into the ground as hard as an industrial hammer would have, if not harder. His chest, face, his whole body, went straight into the mud softened by blood. Arkar didn’t even cry out. He simply fell and lay there. Still face down. His fingers twitched faintly. His back, now drenched in blood from his burst stitches, slowly rose and fell. For now, he was still breathing. But he was no longer moving.

Ordargar stood over him and looked down at Arkar.

“Half-blood,” he hissed. Then he turned to Ardi. “And you, mage, do you want to do something?”

Ardan gripped his staff so tightly that the wood dug painfully into the yielding skin of his palm. He could... He could cast a spell, or he could listen closely to the echoes of the retreating Winter. He could’ve overpowered the estate’s stationary shields thrice over, even though he could feel them brushing against his mind. He could’ve done it. He definitely could have…

He could’ve sent Ordargar and every single one of his orcs to the Sleeping Spirits before they could even comprehend what had happened, but...

With that, Ardi would have signed Arkar’s death warrant. And not because the Conclave and the rest of the orcs would have turned their backs on Arkar, though that would have been part of it as well. No, the real reason would’ve been something else entirely.

Hector might’ve stopped believing in the paths of his ancestors and the word “honor.” Perhaps he had simply wanted to live out the rest of his days closer to the humans, in every sense of the word. But people like Arkar still walked the earth. And there were still many of them. These were people who could not go on living while knowing that their honor, and everything else that had seemed sacred to them, had been stained and trampled underfoot.

And by violating the sacred Larr’rrak duel, Ardan would’ve done exactly that to Arkar. And Arkar, perhaps not immediately, perhaps after several months or even years had passed, would’ve taken a bottle of whiskey and a revolver one evening and painted the walls of “Bruce’s” with his own brains.

“Get up, Arkar.” Ardi ground out the words through tightly-clenched teeth in the language of the steppe orcs. “Get up. You’re Arkar of the Fanged Division! Get up! He’s only an orc! Just an orc, Arkar! He isn’t even a demon!”

The orcs standing around them fell silent. They stopped striking their chests and their battle cry song gradually changed into a deep, guttural drone.

“Look!” Ordargar was in no hurry to bring the duel to an end. He walked over to Arkar, bent down, and jerked him up by his hair. “Take a good look! Is this what the one you placed your trust in looks like? Is this what your future Chief looks like?! A miserable wretch. A pathetic nobody! This is no warrior!”

Ordargar shoved Arkar back into the mud, planted himself opposite him, spread his arms wide, and then struck himself sharply in the chest with both hands. Blood sprayed from the wound in every direction.

“This is what a warrior looks like!” He shouted. “From now on, from this day forward, I-”

“War... rior?” Came a quiet, barely-audible whisper.

Arkar braced himself on his hands and tried to push himself upright. Then he fell back into the mud and, pulling his knees up beneath him, he once again tried to rise. Ordargar stepped off to one side and, with a smile full of superiority and contempt, he watched Arkar’s attempts to get to his feet.

“You’re... not... a warrior, Darg.” Swaying from side to side like a limp willow branch in a gusting wind, Arkar somehow managed to stand. His fingers groped blindly through the mud until they snagged on his knife. “You’re... just... a thug.”

Arkar straightened sharply and wiped his face. Blood ran off him as though it were pouring from a barrel with a hole punched through it.

“You were born and raised... in the Metropolis,” Arkar continued. His arms hung limply down like whips, and he gradually bent forward again. “A warrior? What have you seen... warrior? Other... thugs? Funny... I fought the Armondian... cavalry, and the sight of them would have made you... shit your pants. For days on end, I sat... under artillery fire from the N’gian mercenaries, and the sound of it would have... made you sob. With my bare hands, in the middle of a bombed-out trench, I fought a Tazidahian chimera. I clashed with a Star-born werewolf. I fought an Anhak’Za’Radk. Before my very eyes, a great slayer of the Aean’Hane died. I held my ground against a Striga. I saw things that would have made your fangs fall out and the blood freeze in your veins. And I saw warriors. Real warriors. And they didn’t wear jackets, Darg. They wore uniforms. Every one of them was covered in blood. Shit. And mud. That’s what real warriors look like, Darg. And you’re... just... a thug. But once, you were... something more. While you were still... alive.”

The orcs fell silent.

“Is this how you speak to your older brother, Arkar?” Ordargar asked, still wearing that same crooked smile. “Is this how you-”

“I had brothers,” Arkar cut him off. “One was named Arseny Enlihov, and I couldn’t touch his coffin at his funeral. And the second was named Ordargar, son of Rogradar. And I didn’t notice when he died. But I swear it on the paths of my ancestors, my dead brother: I will spill the blood of those who killed you over your funeral pyre.”

Ordargar’s laugh came from deep in his chest, while Arkar ran forward with a furious cry that gathered together all the strength he had left. Ordargar spun on his heel and, coming out of the turn, he drove his blade up to the hilt into... the hand Arkar had held out to intercept it.

Arkar jerked his impaled hand to the side and Ordargar lost his footing. He swayed—not very much, but enough to bring him closer to Arkar and leave him at a disadvantage, with his own arm blocking him. Arkar’s fangs and tusks flashed and his jaws clamped shut on Ordargar’s throat.

The muscles in Arkar’s jaw tensed and he jerked his head to the side.

A fountain of bright, thick blood shot up into the sky. Ordargar dropped his knife and clutched at his mangled throat. His hands slid over the blood, over the torn rings of his trachea. Bubbling streams of blood and ragged scraps of flesh seeped out from between his fingers.

He fell onto his knees, and in the silence, his harsh, rasping breaths droned on.

Now it was Arkar who, barely able to stay on his feet, closed one hand around the top of Ordargar’s head. Letting his knife fall from his other hand, he tensed his outstretched fingers.

“We’ll sing songs, Darg, about the times when you were our Chief.” Arkar spoke in a heavy tone, his eyes flashing. “But what I see before me now is not my brother. It’s just a piece of meat that doesn’t know it’s already dead.”

Ordargar rasped out something, but it was too late. He had no strength left to tense the muscles of his chest and stop the blow. Arkar’s clawed fingers punched through his flesh and, after gripping something, the half-orc yanked his hand out of Ordargar’s body. Ordargar swayed, rasped out something else, and fell onto his back.

“Arrrrrrrr!” Arkar either shouted or growled while lifting a heart that slowly stopped beating into the air.

The orcs on both sides of the circle, which was covered in mud and blood, began beating their fists against their chests:

“Ukh!”

“Ukh!”

They droned from deep in their chests as they greeted their new Chief. The new Boss of the Orcish Jackets gang.

But something else concerned Ardan. He looked at Arkar and knew that the half-orc, unless the bleeding was stopped, had no more than a quarter of an hour left to live.

Ardan ran to Arkar, who swayed on his feet, still standing only thanks to a strength no one could account for. He slipped a shoulder under him and began rustling through the pages of his grimoire.

“Not... here... Ardi,” Arkar rasped, leaning his full weight onto Ardan and making his wounded leg groan plaintively. “Not... in front... of everyone.”

Damn the orcs and their traditions!

“Help me carry him into the house!” Ardan shouted.

Three orcs rushed over to him, and together, they quickly carried Arkar into the mansion. Ardi had neither the time nor the desire to look over the interior furnishings. They burst into the foyer, turned toward what seemed to be the west wing, where they likewise kicked open the doors of the cigar room with their boots, and then they lowered the wounded half-orc into an armchair.

“Now... go on... Ardi...” Arkar groaned through wheezes and coughs, spitting out blood and scraps of flesh. “Do... your... magicking.”

“Go fuck yourself, Arkar!” This time, Ardan did not let his upbringing stop him, and then he opened his grimoire again.

He would be able to patch up the recent wounds. As for what he could do with the ones that had opened again… That was one hell of a question.