A Blade of Black Steel

by Alex Marshall

  “Absolutely not,” said Ji-hyeon, imagining Ruthless’s ghost whispering at her every time she donned her armor. Not that she believed in ghosts, of course, but this whole practice of putting a dead man’s charred remains into weaponry was already intensely creepy, if also admittedly fleet. “Is there enough to forge a spear blade? One like the Flintlanders use, broad-headed. For fighting, not throwing.”

  “Hmmm,” said the smith, sucking thoughtfully on one of the fleshy fronds that drooped down over his lips. “Yeah. Trace it on a hide like we done for the sword. Also got this back from the lass I told you about.”

  Moving down to the end of the long plank table that separated his workspace from the front of the open-ended tent, he picked up a short, leather-bound rectangle with two brass rings protruding from its side. Ulver had farmed out this component to another artisan, arguing he was no good at mundane ornamentation, let alone something this specific, but he had helped her design it. Slipping her fingers through the rings, Ji-hyeon swiped her hand through the forge-muggy air, trying to feel the phantom weight of the sword at the end of the grip. It would definitely take some getting used to, even with the adjustments Ulver had made to the weight and design of the blade, but when the smith was done Ji-hyeon would have twin swords again, though they’d no longer be identical. When Sullen and Keun-ju had pitched the plan to the smith, they hadn’t been taking into account her missing fingers.

  “Can you fix this to something dull? I’d like to start practicing,” Ji-hyeon asked, clumsily removing the knuckle-duster-inspired grip from her hand.

  “Oh sure, got all the time on the Star for you, General,” said Ulver, looking with unmistakable intention at his neglected lunch. “What say I have my girl run it to your tent first thing anon?”

  “That’ll be fine,” said Ji-hyeon with a smile. “I wasn’t planning on beating anyone’s ass before then anyway.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll try to get to it sooner,” said Ulver as he returned to his meal. “Plans have a way of changing on us, don’t they?”

  “That they do,” said Ji-hyeon, looking down at the old helm that had saved her life almost as many times as it had endangered it, at the customized grip that would soon be stitched and welded around the tang of a sword forged from the ashes of Sullen’s grandfather, and at the fresh scars where her two little fingers ought to be. “That they do.”

  One thing Zosia never felt good about was a double cross, even when it had to happen, even when the victim had it coming five times over… and Kang-ho had it coming fifty times over, if he had it once. She glanced down at her dog as he led them through the camp, his tail wagging as though he didn’t have a care in the world, and not for the first time she envied his lack of concern. Or lack of scruples, as the case may be. Funny to think this time last year she was ready to kill him herself, and now felt warm with relief to see his decrepitude fall away like a winter coat shed in the spring, his bare and blistered hide glazed over with new skin and fur. Maybe a little creepy for those who didn’t know devils and how they relied on battlefields, brothels, and anywhere else where mortal blood ran hottest to feed on whatever intangible substance nourished them, but to Zosia it was a sign that they still had an honest chance; if he had some fight left in him, then so did she.

  If this wasn’t all some grand trap of Choplicker’s. If trusting the old fiend wasn’t the single greatest mistake she’d ever made. If a thousand different variables all fell smoothly into place, one after the other, instead of slipping out of joint. If hatred and revenge were enough to carry the day this time, when all it had gotten her so far was a busted-up face, a busted-up devil, and a few more corpses under her belt.

  “Level with me, Chop,” she said as he led her higher and higher through the snowmelt-flooded camp, “this is a fool’s hope that’s going to get a lot of folk dead, isn’t it?”

  Choplicker looked back and barked, lips curling up over his teeth in an all-too-human smile, and then resumed snuffling his trail through the slush.

  “Knew there was a reason you seemed so eager to help,” Zosia grunted, slipping on the icy earth. That she and her devil were finally seeing eye to eye did not portend well for the Star’s prospects. But then they’d always been cut from the same cloth, albeit with one side in this world and the other in his—they were good at one thing, she and Choplicker, and as with any skill, the key was figuring out the most satisfying application.

  In her youth, she’d done things that not even a devil would be proud of, but later, when she’d spent years starving along with her followers, risking her life every single day, there had been a furnace in her belly, a fire desperate to escape its vessel and burn the whole corrupt Empire to ashes. That furnace, long banked, had roared back to life the day Efrain Hjortt took Leib and all the rest from her… but even the highest, hottest flames die out, if they’re not fed, and her long quest for vengeance had been one damp disappointment after another. Sitting in the Cobalt stockade that miserable night after she’d become the monster they always said she was, the last feeble coal inside her had begun to fade, only to have Singh arrive and blow a little on the embers, kindling it with her kindness. Then the piece of shit prison guards had tried to kill her but all they’d done was stir up the firepot, and when Choplicker gave her the broken crown the flames really began to dance, though it had been so long since she’d properly stoked it that she didn’t even know what fuel it needed.

  She found out when she laid into those monsters and their mother down by the Gate. It was as if she’d applied a gallon of blubber oil and a tornado’s worth of air to the mix, the pleasure of utterly obliterating a foe combined with the certainty that doing so was for the well-being of all living things. This was the passion she had burned with when she set out to save the Star a quarter century past, the knowledge that she may be as cold and deadly as any devil, but if she applied herself she could put those qualities to a greater good. And now, nearly a fortnight out from its reawakening, that bonfire was raging fiercer than ever; it was hard not to imagine the dripping, ice-locked camp thawing from her presence alone as she strode toward one of the means to her end.

  At last Choplicker stopped in front of a partially buried tent, a stained flap of canvas sticking out of a snowbank. There was a fissure in the dirty snow, with a ball of ice covering the knot that held the tent shut. Looking around and making sure no soldiers were loitering about this shade-chilled corner of camp, Zosia cleared her throat and called into the dark interior.

  “Out with you, then, I know you’re in there.”

  Silence. Choplicker whined at the entrance, looking up at her with limpid eyes. You’d think she’d starved the poor dear.

  “Last chance, friend, and then I send my devil in to fetch you.”

  That did it.

  “All right, all right, you rumbled me,” the man called from just inside the flap, and then a dagger flipped out of the darkness and sawed through the frozen twine holding the tent closed. As soon as the tie snapped, half of the snowbank collapsed inside the tent, to the loud cursing of its occupant. He picked his way out into the open, the drift up to his knees, scowling at Zosia with bloodshot eyes and dangling the naked blade from one rag-wrapped hand. The foul steam rising in his wake confirmed he hadn’t left the shelter for days, but from the tidy pack on his back it seemed Zosia had found him just in time. “So that’s that, is it? Your style to let me stew long enough to get my hopes up, then come and dash ’em?”

  “Your name’s Boris?” Zosia asked, stepping back from the overripe fugitive. “Or is that just what you told the sentries when you and the war nun rode into camp?”

  “You can call me Heretic,” said the gaunt youth, licking a cracked and bloody lip as Choplicker nosed his groin. She had hardly thought it possible, but he looked even worse now than he had when she’d found him burying Portolés before the battle. “Don’t suppose you’ll call your devil off ’fore I piss myself?”

  “Come on, Chop,” Zosia said obligingly, swat
ting the devil’s rump. “Can’t you see the nice boy’s happy to help even without your encouragement?”

  “So very happy,” Heretic agreed, still holding his dagger with the despondent air of one unsure whether he wants to cut his own throat or that of his enemy. Choplicker obliged with a final snuffle, then passed by the youth to root around for treats in his soiled tent.

  “It’s good to see you again,” said Zosia. “I was worried you’d be long gone by now.”

  “Yeah, well, I was,” said Heretic, finally sheathing the dagger. “But I came back, didn’t I?”

  “To help the cause?”

  “To buy a few more days from death, I reckon,” said the young man, wiping snot on a frost-stiff sleeve. “Snow started, and when it didn’t stop I knew I’d be finished if I didn’t get someplace warm. So I come back here, though I almost couldn’t find it in the dark. Another miracle, me finding my way back. And another example miracles don’t exist ’cept to remind us how doomed we really are, you busting me just as I was fixing to flee the camp again.”

  “You do strike me as the sort of creature slippery enough to glide past sentries whether you’re coming or going,” said Zosia.

  “Oh, I’m a greasy creeper, no doubt,” said Heretic, scratching a wrist that bore the faint scars of manacles. “I get something to eat before the worms do? They’ll probably prefer me with something in my bowels, and you’re all about seeing the poor don’t go hungry, yeah?”

  “Listen, friend, I’m going to tell you something I’ve not told many people,” said Zosia, looking the grey and grubby man right in the bright pink eyes. “That morning we met, while you were burying Portolés—you were right about me.”

  “I was?” Heretic didn’t sound pleased about the possibility.

  “You were. I talked a big game in my time, and I didn’t follow through on all my promises. Didn’t follow through on most of ’em.” So far so good, nothing she hadn’t told herself over a thousand sleepless nights, but the last took real effort. “… And you’re also right that I shouldn’t have attacked the wildborn nun as soon as I saw her in the general’s tent. You’re right that I should have heard her out before passing judgment. It was a mistake, and because of that mistake she’s dead. She must have worked hard to come all the way here, and so she deserved better than I gave her. I’m sorry.”

  At least Heretic had the decency to look surprised at the proclamation, and Choplicker must really be trying to stay on her good side, because instead of chuffing or ironically howling the devil squirmed out of the partially collapsed tent and licked her hand.

  “So you came here… to apologize?” Heretic didn’t sound convinced.

  “Sure,” said Zosia, but it wouldn’t do to give an innocent man false hope, so she hastened to get the rest out there. “To apologize, and to ask for your help. Something’s happened, something that bodes extremely fucking ill for all the people of the Star, regardless of their allegiances. Your little speech of the other morn convinced me that you’re a principled fellow, someone keen to stand up for the greater good.”

  “Lady, you got the wrong heretic,” he said with a laugh so fake it offended Zosia’s ears. “I’m just a squirrel trying to get a nut.”

  “Bullshit,” said Zosia. “You believed once, Heretic, and I think you’d like to believe again. I’m your miracle, the Stricken Queen returned, and I’m ready to listen to what you have to say. I’m ready to work with you to fix Diadem, to fix the Empire, but to do that first we have to get rid of the common enemy, the one force in this world that’s worse than any devil, because they’re mortal and still aim to drag us back down into the First Dark: the Burnished Chain. And you can help me with that, can’t you?”

  “Well…” Heretic looked past Zosia, out at the blue sky and the white valley and the Cobalt tents just beginning to poke out of the snow like early crocuses. “Would that I could, Yer Majesty, but I’d not be much use to you, I fear. What can I offer that your army can’t, or your devil?”

  “Diadem,” said Zosia. “That’s your home, isn’t it? The place you were born, the place you know better than any other? The place where you might have some friends who share your sympathies, people who might be willing to help the Cobalts recapture the Jewel of Samoth?”

  “Well hell,” said Heretic, looking back at Zosia with new eyes, or at least more interested ones. “That’s not the sort of thing I expected to hear from you, granted. But why should I? ’Cause you’ll kill me if I don’t?”

  “Because you know as bad a mess as we might make of it, it can’t be worse than letting the Black Pope steer Diadem and the rest of the Crimson Empire straight into a hell of the Chain’s own making,” said Zosia. “What do you say, Heretic? Will you help me return to Diadem?”

  “Huh,” said Heretic, smiling a faint, scared little smile, as though he knew he really oughtn’t but couldn’t help himself. “All right, Yer Majesty, I’ll help. But only because they’d never believe me if I came home without proof I’d met the Cobalt Queen.”

  “I’ll do my best to live up to the songs,” said Zosia, offering her hand, and he took it with a cold and sweaty rag-draped hand. “At your service, Heretic.”

  “And yours, I’m sure,” said Heretic. “I do got one condition, though.”

  “One you held back until after I shook,” Zosia noted. “But you’ll find I’m an agreeable woman, when asked nicely, so what’s your request?”

  “You help me get Portolés down to the Gate what opened up in the valley.” He wasn’t meeting her eye anymore. “She told me once, ’bout what they did to her when she was a girl. Those Chain sawbones cut… cut bits off her, and then made her and all their other new pets march down to Diadem Gate and throw their own scraps into it. Imagine doing that to anyone? Imagine doing that to a kid, just ’cause they got funny ears or fingers or something? That’s why I’ll help you, not ’cause of what you’re saying, not ’cause I trust you, but ’cause it has to stop. So the first thing we do is take the sister down to the Gate, reunite her with what they took from her as a girl.”

  “That sounds real nice,” Zosia said, deciding after a moment’s thought not to mention that his sentimental gesture hardly seemed heretical. It was the little efforts to play nice that added up to being a better person, or at least the start of one. “But the ground’s frozen solid; at this point there’s no way you’re getting her out of her grave until spring.”

  “Um, actually, she’s already out…” Heretic sheepishly looked back inside the collapsed tent.

  “You mean…” Zosia wrinkled her nose, having thought Heretic was surprisingly fragrant for but one man in a cold tent.

  “Yeah, it took me the week and a few stolen tools what kept breaking, but I finally got her loose just before dawn.” Heretic held up his raggedy hands. “Think I might have some frostbite under the blisters.”

  “Ah,” said Zosia, sort of touched by his devotion, but only sort of. “I see.”

  “I stole a sledge, too, was gonna drag her down there tonight when the coast was clear, then split out, but you being Cobalt Zosia and all I guess we can just take her now, huh?”

  “First we’ll clear it with our general, but I don’t think she’ll have a problem with it,” said Zosia, knowing the more meaningless respectful gestures she offered Ji-hyeon the better. “Then we’ll take her home, Heretic, you’ve got my word.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. And I changed my mind. Call me Boris.”

  It felt good, knowing she’d inspired this man to believe in something again, but before she could congratulate herself too much he added, “Don’t sound right, coming out anyone’s mouth but hers. You’ve got some big boots to fill, Yer Majesty, I’ll tell you that right now. Portolés may have been a nutter, but she gave me a fair shake. I hope you prove yourself as well as she did.”

  The flames flared up in Zosia at that; prove herself to this runt? Prove herself as good as the war nun who had led the slaughter at Kypck? Before she could do yet another thi
ng that she might regret, Zosia closed her eyes and took a deep breath and forced herself to remember why she was here, and what she was doing. And besides, the smart-mouth had a point—if she couldn’t comport herself better than Portolés had, she didn’t have much right to claim the moral high ground.

  Not that a lack of such terrain had ever stalled her in the past; it didn’t much matter where you planted your feet, so long as you were still standing after the battle.

  “Come on then, Boris, I don’t think the war nun’s in a big hurry so let’s get you fed and washed before we do anything else. One has to look presentable before being taken before the general, and I want her to officially pardon you before we get started.”

  “Pardon?” Boris licked his nasty lips again. “You think she’s liable to do that, after I brought Portolés here?”

  “I don’t think we’ll have a problem with Ji-hyeon,” said Zosia with a grin. “If she pardoned me, she’ll pardon anybody.”

  Nobody spoke as Ji-hyeon desperately scanned the small letter, parsing the High Immaculate with some difficulty—she had never excelled at the tongue. Nor had her second father, apparently, which made the translation even more arduous. Once she was positive it did indeed say what she had hoped it would, she put it down with a sigh and looked around at Fennec and Choi, at Singh and Zosia. She couldn’t stop grinning, and her voice even cracked a little as she told them the news.

  “He’s warning me of your betrayal, Zosia.”

  “Or he’s declining the bait in favor of a better opportunity,” said Fennec, reminding Ji-hyeon just how infuriatingly cynical he could be. Cynical and realistic are often bedfellows, he would argue, but it scarcely mattered, because for the first time in a very long time her second father hadn’t completely failed her. It was a small thing, his not trying to collaborate with his old friends to sell her to Empress Ryuki, but if only for a moment it made her feel as warm and safe as she had as a girl back on Hwabun, when a typhoon battered the Isles but she and her family took shelter in the cave at the heart of the island, sitting together around crackling fires in the ancient hearth. Such warmth was fleeting here in the snowbound camp with the Thaoan regiment trapping them just as the storms had surrounded Hwabun, but with no hope that the threat would eventually move past them on southerly winds, leaving the horizon clear. Ji-hyeon savored it while it lasted.