CHAPTER
22
Nobody likes to have a knife held to his face, which was why Maroto did what he did to the scout he had captured. The squirrelly little man—more of a boy, really—lay on his back hyperventilating while Maroto squatted beside him in the mossy bole of a maple, his blade nicking his captive’s septum and his thumb resting on the bridge of the fellow’s nose. They both knew Maroto could pare off the man’s twitching, running bit of cartilage as easily as taking a wedge from an oddly shaped cheese, yet still the scout refused to give up the goods. It was almost as if the blighter knew about Maroto’s oath, could tell at a glance he’d sooner cut up his own face than torture a sworn servant of Samoth.
Rare was the day where Maroto didn’t regret vowing to Queen Indsorith that he’d never again raise weapons against her or her people save in self-defense; he hadn’t had much choice in the matter, given the circumstances, but still, it was damned inconvenient that a poor decision made twenty years ago continued to hamstring him. He still had no idea how much use he’d be to his old general once he finally caught up to her, what with that meddlesome oath, but he’d burn that bridge when he got to it—first he had to reach Zosia. Since they had followed the trail of the Cobalt Company here to Myura, it was a safe bet she was barricaded inside the nearby castle that the Imperials were laying siege to. Now if only he could get this fucking scout to open up without opening him up.
“Come on, man,” he said, hoping the knife would lend weight to his bluff. “If I have to take it off you’ll scream, and if you scream I’ll have to cut your throat. Who wants that?”
“I dunno what you’re talking ’bout, I swear!” repeated the scout, too loudly, and Maroto sighed. He hated the very idea of taking off bits of people—if you were going to cut, not cutting to the kill was a dark business. As if he knew any other kind.
“I told you I’d give you two chances. That was your first, now your second is going to be whether or not you scream. Being noseless is better than being dead, so I’d hold it in were I you.”
The scout whimpered, his bulging eyes big as goose eggs, but still didn’t confess. Maroto was stumped—unless he actually cut this kid they weren’t getting anything out of him, but Maroto wasn’t keen to find out what happened if he broke an oath he’d sworn on the name of his devil.
“Maroto, why—” Purna began from her perch in the tree above them, but he cut her off with a hiss.
“Kiss the devils on their mouths, girl, now you’ve done it,” he said, secretly relieved she’d set him up with the opportunity for one last play. “How many times have I told you not to use my name? I could have let this runt off with a nosing, but now… sorry, lad.”
“Maroto.” The scout whispered his name as reverently as that of a saint. “You… you’re Maroto the Conqueror?”
“Yeah yeah,” allowed Maroto. “And you’re Noseless the Horribly Dying Scout if you don’t—”
“The Cobalt Witch,” said the scout quickly. “That’s who you’re lookin’ for, ain’t it? Your old queen.”
“Your old queen, too,” Maroto reminded the boy, trying to rein in his excitement at the scout’s use of an epithet he hadn’t heard in decades. “Although maybe you weren’t born when she… while she… She’s not a witch, is the point you’ve got to come to. Cobalt Zosia is fine, or, what was it she liked…”
“Cold Cobalt,” Purna called down. “Oooh, and ‘the Banshee with a Blade’ is the name of one of Vuntwor of Nin’s better ballads about her—that’s what I’d go by, I was her. Has a wicked ring to it.”
“I always just liked the sound of ‘Queen Zosia,’ ” Maroto mused. “But really, any such title that doesn’t denigrate her character will do, and help keep your nose attached for the moment.”
“It’s true,” said the scout, wonder seeming to have chased off some of the blind terror he’d evidenced ever since Maroto had snatched him from behind the tree and pinned him down. “It’s really her, isn’t it?”
“Devils lick your bones, that’s what I’m asking you,” said Maroto. “The mercenary company your regiment’s cornered at Myura Castle, who leads them?”
“A woman, I told you, thass all I know for sure,” said the scout. “The brass must not have toll us all for fear it’d affect morale. It’s got to be her.”
“What makes you think that?” Maroto took some of the pressure off his blade.
“I ain’t seen her, let ’lone close enough to tell the color of her hair, but the flag she’s run up the castle poles is blue, dark blue, with a broken red crown in the center and five silver pentacles circlin’ it.” The scout gulped. “One for each Villain, right?”
“That’s new heraldry, but sure sounds like her style,” said Maroto, trying not to grin and failing spectacularly. Five pentacles on her flag! She was expecting him! “That’s information to save your nose, if not your life, scout!”
“Scout?” the scout said. “I’m not a scout.”
“I told you I didn’t think he was,” said Purna. “And the only thing I can see from up here are more trees. Can I come down?”
“No,” said Maroto, and guffawed almost convincingly. “Not a scout—and just what do you think a scout would say when captured, eh? Why’s else would he be skulking around this border wood when there’s a siege on in the town below, and with the Crimson sigils on his armor all blacked up? Not a scout!”
“No, Captain Maroto, sir, I’m not,” insisted the scout. “Thass what I was tryin’ to say when you put the knife to me—I’m not now nor ’ave I ever been a scout. I tried to cover the red on me tabard to blend into the woods, it’s true, but if I was a real scout I wouldn’t have just walked into your ambushin’ me, yeah?”
“Maybe yes and maybe no,” said Maroto, considering the boy beneath him. Not a scout? “I’ve caught plenty of scouts in my day.”
“And what would I be scoutin’ out here in the forest, miles from Myura, with the sun ’bout to set?”
“Easy,” said Maroto, wondering whom he was trying to convince here. “Patrolling the hinterlands to make sure reinforcements aren’t sneaking up from behind to break the siege, or deliver supplies.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” the scout agreed. “I didn’t think ’bout that. But if I was a scout don’t you think I’d know that an’ be ready with a better excuse?”
“You’re talking into my deaf ear,” said Maroto—the only good to have come out of taking that damn arrow to the head was getting to use that tired expression as much as he wanted.
“What kind of scout—”
“Shhh,” said Maroto, pressing the blade firmer. Even with only one good ear he thought he’d heard—
“Someone’s coming up the hill behind us,” Purna stage-whispered from the maple boughs. “Shall I open fire?”
Hearing the crunch of leaves under several pairs of boots, followed by a tinkling silver bell and a high-pitched giggle, Maroto seriously considered it. Half their running crew had returned to the capital if not their familial houses before Maroto’s wounded ear had even stopped oozing lymph, and most of the other nobles had fallen off along the surreptitious trail from the edge of the Panteran Wastes to Agalloch, from Agalloch to Geminides, from Geminides back around to Katheli, and finally from Katheli to here outside the castle of Myura, where the elusive Cobalt Company had been cornered by the local Imperial regiment. Those few fops who remained were the most dedicated to adventure, if not to following orders, a sad point that was made for the umpteenth time as Count Hassan, Duchess Din, and Pasha Diggelby emerged from the underbrush.
Count Hassan was dressed in his dramatically sheer fencing gown and carried an ivory-handled machete in one hand and an enormous drinking horn in the other, the sloshing vessel supposedly carved from a megapotamus tooth. Duchess Din’s thigh-high magenta boots were fashionably gartered onto her gleaming scalemail singlet, the prow of her wig skewered with a golden quarrel that shone in contrast to the dull oak of the one nocked in her enormous crossbow. Pash
a Diggelby wore the leather vest and skirt he had modeled after Maroto’s own garb, a crystal waterpipe in one bony hand and a leash in the other. At the end of the leash was the fluffy white lapdog he insisted was a devil that his father had bought him from a Kravyadian diabolist but that was probably just an Ugrakari spaniel. The bell Maroto had heard announcing their arrival hung not around the pup’s ruby-studded collar, but its master’s.
“What ho,” cried Diggelby. “Maroto’s caught us some supper.”
“Looks too lean,” said the duchess. “I can abide a gamey cut, but never a stringy one.”
“Oh, fellows,” said Hassan. “I do not know if I can stomach the sight of Maroto sating his appetites, tranquil sylvan backdrop or not. It’s all too beastly.”
“Didn’t we tell you to wait with the wagons?” said Purna, descending from her roost.
“We? We! Purna, love, that’s absolutely adorable,” said Diggelby. “Tell us, when are the nuptials, and shall we sit with the bride’s side, or the groom’s?”
“I really ought to be merciful and cut your throat now,” Maroto told the scout.
“Who’s your new playmate?” Hassan asked as Purna dropped the last few feet to the ground. “He looks about as old as your last opponent. Good thing we arrived in time to save you another hiding.”
“My name’s Lukash,” said the scout, beginning to squirm out from under Maroto but freezing when the barbarian’s blade tapped his face.
“His name’s Noseless the Horribly Dying Scout,” said Maroto, imagining the looks on these fops’ faces when he made that first awful cut. If only he could go back and undo his vows; they needed a reminder this wasn’t all some lark, this was war, or close enough, and this poor scout could provide just the—
“I’m not a scout,” said Lukash, rather peevishly. There was some cheek there you usually didn’t get from desperate fuckers.
“What are you, then?” demanded Purna, squatting down beside Maroto and putting one bark-stained thumb directly against the boy’s left eye before he could blink. “Tell me now or they’ll call you One-eyed Lukash the Noseless Idiot from here on out.”
“I’m… a deserter,” said Lukash, closing his other eye in shame. “I’m Khymsari, it’s against my faith to wage war. I been lookin’ for the chance to sneak off ever since the Myuran regiment drafted me.”
“Uh-huh,” said Purna. “Sure you are. Take off his lying lips, Maroto.”
“Oh, let him up already,” said Diggelby, leaning over to light his waterpipe on the match Hassan had struck for him. “This is all perfectly barbaric.”
“Khymsari, huh?” Maroto reached up and pulled the boy’s iron skullcap off as the fop’s pipe gurgled in the background. Sure enough, there was the crown of shorn squares in his otherwise thick black hair. If Maroto hadn’t stuck to his sacred oath he might have disfigured a pacifist. Wouldn’t have been the first time. “Devils’ mercy… Let him up, kid, he’s telling the truth.”
“Bravo,” said Duchess Din, juggling the crossbow around in her arms to accept the smoldering waterpipe from Hassan as Diggelby coughed up a lungful of skunky smoke.
“You’ll let me go, then?” asked Lukash, not daring to move from his imprint in the rotting leaves.
“Once you tell us everything there is to know about your regiment, the Siege of Myura Castle, and how one might sneak past the former into the latter… well, maybe,” said Maroto. “Come on, let’s get back to camp. I’ve got a hankering for balut, and don’t expect we’ll find any eggs out here.”
The merry posse—for they seemed always merry, these few remaining richies, even with the last of their servants having deserted a few days past—picked their way back through the autumn woods, the brilliant topaz, amethyst, and garnet leaves that remained on the maples, oaks, and wild damsons turning the whole wood into an arboreal treasure chest. The nip in the evening air felt like a belated gift from long-absent gods to his ever-sweaty brow, and Maroto hummed an old marching song to himself as they walked. Purna followed, questioning the prisoner and thus giving Maroto a respite from her yammering, and just ahead Diggelby, Din, and Hassan argued over the wording of an anthem Maroto had never heard. Nothing could dampen his mood, not now. Sure, they’d taken a tour of the whole bloody Crimson Empire after leaving the Panteran Wastes, only to end up back here, less than a hundred leagues from where they’d first quit the desert, but that was the way of the world, wasn’t it, to forever be winding up just where you’d started? There was a time when Maroto would have resented his cyclical trajectory, but at present he found it hard to complain. The reason for his excellent humor was simple: over the last few months, as they’d picked up more and more scraps of rumor along the trail of the blue-haired mercenary captain, Maroto had finally let himself believe the bartalk he’d overheard that spring night in Niles. Zosia was alive, and if the last twenty years had been him wandering out in a wide circle, wide as the whole Star and then some, now he was coming right back to the beginning. Back to her.
How? Well, she must have been imprisoned instead of killed, as everyone had claimed, and now she had escaped and rallied her old army to take back her rightful due. Impossible as it seemed, his queen, his captain, his one true love yet drew breath. And she was here, just over these hills, holed up in a castle while the forces of her former captors surrounded her.
Maroto couldn’t wait to break her out.
CHAPTER
23
Come clean, Keun-ju,” said Zosia for the hundredth time since they had left the Immaculate Isles, and the fourth or fifth since they’d been seized at the harbor. “You can trust me.”
“Nothing to tell,” said Keun-ju, turning his veiled face to the whitewashed wall of the sandy cell the customs agents had locked them in. She was wearing him down, she could tell, and he would crack eventually. “Why must you badger me so?”
“Call me a romantic, but I want to know why before they kill us,” said Zosia, hitting on the idea and running with it. The Virtue Guard knew less about Raniputri culture than Zosia did about guarding one’s virtue. “The crime for bestiality in these parts is execution. They don’t do trials here, either, so odds are when the guards come back for us it’s death by elephant—they train the beasts to take their time with it, too, so we’ll be in agony for a while. I’d like to go to the devils knowing why.”
“They’re not going to kill us, and certainly not with elephants,” said Keun-ju, but he didn’t sound convinced. “And why do they think you would… ugh.”
“It’s a setup, obviously,” said Zosia, thinking out loud. “Bang could’ve sent word somehow, I guess, via homing albatross or some other means. Definitely a good way to make sure we don’t come after her.”
“So why not, you know… give them your real name instead of the alias?” Keun-ju whispered the last, heathen gods of his people bless and keep him. “Why tell them to look for Moor Clell instead of Cobalt Zosia?”
“That’s a good point,” said Zosia. “I’d hazard the guilty party thought customs wouldn’t believe such a claim, considering I’m supposed to be twenty years dead.”
“Or if the locals did believe it, they probably would make a big deal out of it, yes?” said Keun-ju. “A very, very big deal, if they have any wits at all. So why don’t you tell them who you are? If nothing else, they might delay the execution long enough to attract some more fanfare to the occasion.”
“You think they’d believe me?” Zosia shook her head. “We’re doomed, kid, so you might as well spill the royal beans, die unburdened of secrets. We both know Ji-hyeon kidnapped herself; the only thing I can’t figure out is why you didn’t go with her, since you obviously love her.”
“I do?” Keun-ju swallowed. “I don’t. I mean, yes, or rather, no… She is my mistress, of course, so I do… um.”
“Wow,” said Zosia, recognizing that feeling all too well. “You’ve got it bad. She gave you the sword, right? A tri-tiger like that must have set her back a lot more than a week’s allowance.
”
“It’s not a three-tiger, it’s a four,” said Keun-ju, not even trying to mask his pride. “It’s been in her family for three generations, and the swordmaker was an Ugrakari who could trace her lineage back to the Sunken Kingdom. She left no heirs to her art, so there’s probably no sword like it left in the world. And now it’s in the hands of a filthy Raniputri, thanks to you.”
“The Raniputri put a higher commodity on bathing than Immaculates, so I wouldn’t go down that road were I you. And the only reason you’re still alive is thanks to me—if you’d killed those agents, you never would have gotten off the dock. Those lighthouses we passed coming in? The best archers in the Dominion keep watch from up there, just waiting for an excuse to shoot some foreign idiot.”
“Better to have died with her sword in my hand than with it locked in some drawer,” said Keun-ju.
“Well, that would make for a better ballad, I’ll admit,” said Zosia. “Personally, I can’t believe they took Choplicker. The insinuation is beyond disgusting.”
“What makes you think Ji-hyeon ran away instead of being taken?” asked Keun-ju, and Zosia caught her smile before it gave her away. Maybe he just wanted to talk about anything other than the crime she was accused of, but from the needy tone in his voice she guessed he might’ve bought the story she’d spun him about an imminent pachyderm execution. Granted, maybe they were about to be killed, but not for the reasons he supposed, and probably not with an elephant as the murder weapon—the beasts were rare outside of a couple of Dominions way to the east.
“Princes and princesses are always kidnapping themselves,” said Zosia. “She takes after her dad, it sounds like, and that would be his style for sure. Add to that the lack of ransom note, and I’m guessing Fennec sweet-talked her into making a break for it. Fennec would be Brother Mikal to you. They’re probably off somewhere fucking like rabbits while we await a grisly death.”
A Crown for Cold Silver Page 23