A Crown for Cold Silver

by Alex Marshall

  Gilleland’s smile widened, and when Beard Bandit put a hand on the hilt of his sword the other four punks did the same. That was fine. Maroto was an easy two bounds away from Gilleland, and had come in at such an angle that the captain and his two goons were now between Maroto and the wagon, spoiling the shot of anyone inside. Not the shot of anyone hiding in the cliffs around him, granted, but you can’t expect everything in life to be easy.

  “Tell you what, barbarian,” said Gilleland. “You stop right there and we talk through this.”

  Maroto obliged. He was close enough. “And in the Shrine of the Hungry Sands, you maybe put the idea to those lepers that Diggelby and his knights were interested in having a religious experience?”

  “Just Zir Sisoruen and Chevaleresse Halford, actually,” said Gilleland. “The Diggelby boy wandered in at an inopportune time, so you can imagine my relief that he wasn’t harmed. You’re smarter than your reputation, Maroto. I wonder just how smart.”

  “Dad, what—” Beard Bandit began, but Captain Gilleland’s sharp frown cut out the boy’s tongue. Oh, this was getting good, all right—the lighter the sky grew, the softer these bandits were looking. They were red with sunburn, not dark with tan. Probably hadn’t been in the Wastes a week. For the first time since Maroto had made his sneering acquaintance, Captain Gilleland looked a little on edge.

  “Smart enough to figure we lost everyone on the road who’d be loyal to their charges instead of going along with your plan,” said Maroto.

  “And here you stand, neck unslit despite your mouth,” said Gilleland. “Advantages to sleeping in a noble’s carriage with servants all about, instead of taking your turn on watch like the disgraced scout they thought they were hiring.”

  “I wondered how that red recluse got into the wagon. Lucky I always check my bedroll. Creeping things never stand a chance against the Villain Maroto—no matter how much venom they carry, a sandal settles them flat.” Truth be told, it had taken a bit of willpower not to see if he could get high off the spider first.

  “Game doth recognize game, Maroto,” said Gilleland. “That’s the only reason we’re talking.”

  Maroto snorted. It would be bad enough if Outlanders just adopted Flintland slang, but they usually mangled the meaning. On the Frozen Savannahs, hunters meant a very different kind of game when they busted out that burn on a punk—even a scared hare knew the difference between a mouse and the maned wolf that stalked them both, was the idea.

  “How would you have gotten them to take this route, if I hadn’t put it out there?” Maroto recalled the captain’s protests when he’d found the party at their inn and proposed the Desperate Road—he was cool as snowmead fresh out the ice-wagon, no doubt about it. “Your brat might have been waiting out here for nothing.”

  “Getting nobles to do what you want is simply a matter of telling them that they can’t,” said Gilleland smugly. “Now, dawn’s upon us, so let’s be done with this. I know you, Maroto, and to put it plainly you’re not invited to this final fete. As a token of deference for your many heroic deeds during the Cobalt War, we’ll give you a head start of a hundred heartbeats. In that time you can proceed through the caravan, taking what you can carry, and then travel a respectful distance back down the road. An hour after we depart, you can follow, leaving the Wastes however you like. Simple terms, yet generous.”

  “Simple is definitely the word,” agreed Maroto. “What if I take the opportunity to rally the troops?”

  “The rear guard, who are in league with us, or the fops? Either way, it doesn’t end well for you.”

  “And how does it end for them?” Maroto’s eyes kept flicking around the canyon walls as they came into clearer sight. So far, no glint of sunlight on arrowhead or gun barrel. “Ransom?”

  “Ransom? Those chumps?” Captain Gilleland shook his head. “Sadly, much more trouble than it’s worth. They have enough on their persons to make this a handsome enough windfall without our getting greedy and complicating things.”

  “Point,” said Maroto, weighing his options. He wasn’t being offered such a bum deal here, and it would pay out nicely for all parties. Well, other than the fops. Captain Gilleland wasn’t so simple after all. One minute alone in the caravan and Maroto could seize enough loot to ride all the way to Agalloch in his very own pleasure wagon. He hadn’t really thought much beyond traveling with the nobles back through the Wastes, anyway—what was he going to do, lead these hooting idiots all the way over the Star to Zosia and the Cobalt Company?

  He only had two plays here: swing on five greenies and three hardscrabble toughs, with more sure to follow and a decided lack of dependable support from the only ones to benefit from such a suicidal move, or take Captain Gilleland’s offer. He’d have a bit more blood on his hands, but what of it? They were stained enough he’d never notice another coat. Wasn’t this exactly what he’d known might happen, taking the Giggle Contingent on the Desperate Road? Wasn’t this what they’d expressly asked for, a gritty adventure in the real world?

  Fight for your lives, fops, because Maroto won’t!

  The old Maroto would have already taken the deal, Old Black knew. He might’ve been the one to set up the betrayal himself. He might be stupid, but he was no fool.

  “Tapai Purna comes with me,” he decided.

  “Not a chance,” said Gilleland. “Your word means nothing, but hers might. What if she contacts the families of those unfortunate friends of hers who are about to be lost in a swarmstorm? Come on, Maroto, we both know this doesn’t work if she walks.”

  “Yeah, I see that.” There was nothing to stop him from accepting the offer, snagging Purna on his way back through the camp anyway, and then riding away with her. Tough luck for the rest of the fops, and tough luck for Gilleland if he felt like pursuing Maroto and Purna. That was the only move, when you got down to it—anything else was madness, and where had madness ever gotten him, other than right where he stood?

  “Good. Now, that minute of yours starts now. It’s been a real pleasure, hope we can do this again sometime.” Gilleland waved Maroto off with his swordpoint, and his son’s taut knuckles relaxed on his pommel. Beard Bandit thought Dear Old Dad had sorted everything. Well, sorted it soon would be.

  “New terms,” said Maroto, committing to his decision. “I’m afraid I can’t give you a full minute to answer, though, just about ten beats of your chicken heart. You throw down your weapons and walk away, or I’ll chop you all in half with my ax—if your own skin isn’t worth the saving, Gilleland, think of your son.”

  Beard Bandit took a step back, bumping into one of his cronies, but Captain Gilleland was unimpressed. “Even in his prime, I doubt the Mighty Maroto could kill eight steady hands before one of them—”

  “Chop in half,” said Maroto, trying unsuccessfully to arrest the grin crawling up his face, the ax nearly floating off his shoulder. “Didn’t say I’d kill you, said I’d chop you all in half. With my ax.”

  “Had we the time, I might actually like to see you try such a—” Captain Gilleland began, but the hard man never got to finish acting his part, because Maroto took him at his word.

  Maroto had heard of Gilleland long before they’d met at the outset of this ill-fated job. The wiry ginger had made a name for himself at the Siege of Old Slair—if memory served, he was the one who’d taught the survivors of the first month how to trap the rats and vultures that went after the castle’s dead, so the besieged would have something other than their fellows to eat. Maybe if they’d just sucked it up and eaten their fallen comrades they could’ve mustered the strength to carry the day when the gate finally fell, instead of getting their half-starved arses handed to them by the Usbans. Whatever the case, the treacherous veteran was about to discover that trapping a bear takes a lot more preparation than goes into catching rats.

  Captain Gilleland had enough sense not to try to parry the double-headed ax. Instead, he dodged to the side, jutting his saber out to impale the charging barbarian. It might
’ve worked, too, if his son hadn’t been underfoot. Beard Bandit spoiled his father’s play, leaving Captain Gilleland nowhere near so far from harm as he’d have liked as he bounced off his boy. And then Maroto proved himself an honest man.

  Captain Gilleland’s swordpoint missed Maroto’s side by a good six inches, and Maroto’s ax snapped through the smaller man’s collarbone at an angle. The weapon hewed through meat and bone, grinding to a stop in Gilleland’s ribs just beneath the captain’s opposite armpit. To the amateur observer it might’ve seemed that Maroto had failed to deliver, but then he wrenched his wrists, twisting the ax’s haft in his hands and leveraging Captain Gilleland’s head, arm, and shoulder completely off his ruined body. Only the undamaged flank of Gilleland’s leather dress uniform kept him from falling in two easy pieces, the upper half of the bisected man flopping sideways on the hinge of armor.

  There was no moment of stunned wonder as everyone considered this feat, much as Maroto would have appreciated a brief reprieve to admire his handiwork. No, the fight was well and truly on, Gilleland’s two goons already on top of him. The hard man and harder-looking woman had him pinned between them, and even a star of the Immaculate ballet would have been hard pressed to dance around their flashing blades.

  You wouldn’t guess it to look at him, but Maroto was one devil of a dancer, and as his two new partners assailed him, his hands jerked the ax free of Gilleland’s teetering wreckage and his feet spun him away. Before the captain’s carcass had even hit the ground, Maroto was tagged on the cheek by the man’s sword and felt the whisper of the woman’s blade open breeches and thigh alike. He’d also maneuvered himself directly into the pack of stumbling, fumbling wannabe bandits, and as the two heavies pressed their advantage Maroto put the greenies between himself and the real danger. He waltzed through the cluster of youths before their steel had cleared leather, the two mercenaries barking at the kids to “Get him, get him!”

  Easier said than done, a single blade managing to swat his back only to bounce off the chainmail vest. Fast as he’d launched his retreat, Maroto braced himself and heaved forward again, the side-armed arc of his ax a grey blur. It nicked the side of a stubbly, sunburned bandit on its way to its true target. As the full measure of the weapon sheared into the hip of Gilleland’s hard man, the first kid struck by the weapon collapsed against his fellows, guts falling out of the modest rend in his shirt. Maroto kept his ax sharp.

  Eight against had turned to five, and Maroto was really only counting one of those. Yet he no longer had surprise on his side, and a volley of gunfire from the halted caravan implied that the four other traitorous guards were executing the fops with due haste and might ride to the front at any moment. Gilleland’s sole remaining mercenary had the sense to follow Maroto’s example and insulate herself behind the four upright bandits, none of whom seemed eager to be the first to charge the barbarian now that he had darted back out of striking distance. There came the breathy pause Maroto had wanted back when he’d hewed Gilleland in twain, a moment to appreciate what he’d done—lazy as he’d been these last few years, he hadn’t lost his touch!

  From the corner of his eye, he saw several riders break toward them from the caravan. Better sort this lot fast, before—

  Thwack. He reeled to the side, wondering how in the hells one of these runts had blindsided him, the pain in the side of his head rapidly rising from bad to White-Hot-Fucking-Agony. The arrow was still vibrating from its impact with his skull, sending dizzying waves of awfulness into the numb flesh of his ringing ear. Greenies and hard woman alike rushed him then.

  Beard Bandit led with a saber clearly modeled after his father’s, and Maroto went to the place he always did in a tough fight, the place from which there was no coming back, not until the last foe had fallen. His vision cleared, his heart slowed, his mind focused, even the church bell clanging in his ear fading away to a distant chime. He had made a promise to these scrubs, and he might not be able to keep an oath to himself, but he always kept those he made to his enemies.

  Captain Gilleland’s son came apart in a cloud of blood. Maroto’s ax kept going, into a greenie behind Beard Bandit, lodging in the poor wench’s rib cage. The hard woman almost nailed him but he yanked the ax free of the dying bandit girl in time to parry her slash. The noise of the world fell away into silence, save the riot his partners made for him—a grunt, a gasp, a boot heel grinding in the dust. Even deaf in one ear, Maroto heard them all so clearly he could have closed his eyes and cut them down by sound alone.

  Probably. He had no intention of testing that theory at present.

  Maroto danced with the bandits, with his ax, with the blades darting at him from all directions.

  Chop. There went a hand, split down the middle, all the way up the wrist.

  Step. There went a cutlass, skidding off his mailed chest.

  Chop. There went a whole arm.

  Step. There went a sunburned punk, blundering between Maroto and the hard woman.

  Chop. There went the top half of a head.

  Step. There went a rich spume, Maroto bringing a red rain to this parched earth.

  Chop. There went Maroto, spinning away on the ground before the mercenary could hit him again with her sword. The slash across his knuckles shouldn’t have been enough to make him drop the ax, but there it was, lying on the ground amid the splayed legs of felled fools. He rolled farther away from it. He’d put enough space between himself and his attacker to leap back up, but as he finished the roll the arrow in his ear dragged across the rough earth. The sensation utterly poleaxed him. It felt like wizard’s lightning, his body shutting down completely, his mind as rattled as his flesh. He lay shuddering in the sand just long enough for the hard woman to tower over him, a long sword diving down to spit him…

  First lightning out of nowhere, and now a thunderclap came just before its storm cloud, the whole order of the world running backward. The hard woman collapsed atop Maroto even as the fume of peppery gunsmoke enveloped them both. They sprawled like lovers, the contents of the mercenary’s fissured skull running down into Maroto’s stunned face. The cloud quickly rose, but Maroto was unable to extricate himself from the dead woman’s weight. Either the arrow in his head had struck deeper than he’d thought or that first cut he’d taken to the leg was bleeding him out. Either way…

  “Ho, Your Majesty, should I give you and your new friend some privacy?” Purna’s voice came from far, far away, but then she leaned over him, a flintlock pistol in one hand and a kakuri in the other. Smoke rose from the muzzle of the richly filigreed gun and blood ran down the bow-shaped curve of the long knife, beading off its tip. She had clearly taken the time to apply several black and orange stripes of makeup beneath her eyes before rallying the rest of the fops to the greater cause. She wiped the blood from her blade on her victim’s back, then sheathed her weapons in the black leather holsters on her studded white belt. “You two make a cute couple.”

  “Hey,” said Maroto, his own voice seeming to drift down from somewhere high above him. “Get me up.”

  “Sure, I—ugh, is that in you?” Purna snatched back the hand she’d proffered him and pointed to her own ear. “Are you dying? Is it in your brain?”

  “Get me up and I’ll tell you,” said Maroto, his voice even farther away now. He needed to get this done quick, before he blacked out. “Slow about it, now.”

  Purna obliged, rolling the dead mercenary off him with her foot and helping him up. As soon as she tried he slapped her away, collapsing back into the sand and trying not to puke. Standing hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Woof.

  Her voice sounded even more remote as she prattled on. “The rear guard were in on it, you know? They thought they were slick, telling us to hurry out of the wagons without even dressing. A fine thing I’d already roused everyone and told them to ready their weapons before I went looking for the guards, or who knows what would have happened! They didn’t like us coming out with guns primed, and said as much, which was
when I took a look with Diggelby’s hawkglass, just in time to see you swing on Gilleland. I gave the order, and we shot them down.”

  Purna took another deep breath before concluding her account. Maroto reckoned she could probably hold her breath for minutes underwater.

  “So we took their camels and rode up to help you, and Diggelby, Din, and Hassan went after the two who got away—they were hiding in that decoy wagon with crossbows, but we flushed them out. Hardly any casualties… other than you.”

  “Wonderful,” groaned Maroto. Even lying flat in the dirt he felt like he was balancing on the prow of a dinghy in a hurricane, relying on chance to keep him from falling overboard. “You make an all right sidekick, kid.”

  “Sidekick?” Purna raised her penciled-on double brows at him. “Have you ever even listened to a song, Maroto? I’m the brash young hero, and you’re the tired old master I have to persuade to teach me.”

  “Sounds awful,” he said, suddenly wondering if he was going to die. Looking down the length of his numb body, he saw that his entire left leg was soaked red. “That mean you’ll do what I tell you?”

  “Until you die, sure,” said Purna, her faint voice causing the invisible sea beneath Maroto’s back to roil even fiercer. “You’ll probably have to sacrifice yourself to save me before the end.”

  “Don’t count on it,” he said, the hot air tasting of blood and harsher metals.

  “Well, we’ll see if you last the day—you may have already gotten the jump on that part of the song.”

  There was a devil-blessed thought. The possibility did little to improve his outlook. “You want to be my protégée?”

  “More than anything.” Purna clasped one of his massive hands in both of hers. “When the time comes, I swear I’ll avenge you, Maroto.”

  “Great,” he said. “In the meantime, be a good girl and help me chop up these bodies.”

  “Excuse me?” Purna dropped his hand. It landed on his chest with the weight of a maul.