Except deep as his saber went, it didn’t go far enough to kill it outright, apparently, for the monster reared away, wrenching his saber out of his hand and snapping his wrist in the process. Pulled to his knees by the momentum, he blinked in surprise, and before his eyes had reopened he felt a battering ram catch him in the left hip. He was in the air, pinwheels of torch and starlight all around him, and then he landed in a roll, extremities crunching and then going dead as he bounced along and finally slid to a stop. Only one eye would open, but as the world stopped reeling he saw the horned wolf that had headbutted him was crashing drunkenly through the tangled canvas of the collapsed command tent, Domingo’s saber still jutting from its eye, both guards still caught on its horns. A faint slapping sound, and then another, and black blooms spread on either side of its blind eye. It died abruptly, and Domingo closed his eye and gave silent thanks to the Fifteenth, those brave children of Azgaroth who had saved their father, even when he had been unable to save his son.
“Oi!” A stick prodded at his aching chest, and he tried to sit up and assault his assailant, but barely managed to reopen his eye. He hadn’t recognized the voice because he had only ever seen him across the battlefield and had never parleyed with the man during the long war, never spoken to him in peace. There could be no doubt, though, that he had remembered true: the man standing over him was Mighty Maroto, the Fifth Villain of the Cold Cobalt. Well, not standing so much as tottering on the walking stick he had poked Domingo with, the man’s black-bandaged knee apparently not just a crafty disguise. “I know you, friend?”
“Yes… Colonel…” he managed through ribs that were surely broken, but then lost his air. He might never speak another word…
“Hmmm,” said Maroto, biting his bottom lip as he stared down at Domingo. “Nope. Sorry, friend, I can’t say I remember.”
“Fifteenth Regiment, out of Azgaroth,” said Domingo, clear as the lymph oozing out of him now that rage had overridden agony. After all the times they had matched wits during Cobalt Zosia’s war on the Empire, this moron didn’t even remember him?
“Ah!” Maroto brightened considerably, snapped his fingers. “At Ensiferum, right before Zosia snuck into Diadem and got Kaldruut with the old sneak-and-shank! You would have had us for sure, if Hoartrap hadn’t—”
“Thirteenth,” Domingo hissed through gritted teeth. “The Thirteenth met you at Ensiferum, not us. We fought at—”
“Got it loose!” The Ugrakari woman entered Domingo’s narrow, black-speckled field of vision. She looked to be holding a huge, wet rug, blood dripping from it to patter against Domingo’s cheek. Peering down at the name badge his sister-in-law had sewn on his breast pocket, she said, “Bad news, Colonel Hjortt—looks like the Cobalt Company just jacked your shit all up.”
“We kind of did, I guess?” Maroto lowered his voice as he leaned closer to the prone Domingo. “Make sure the queen knows I didn’t mean to, you know—”
“Time to go!” one of the other spies called.
“Past time!” said another, and, offering him a blood-handed wave, the Ugrakari trotted away.
“Sorry?” Maroto offered Domingo an apologetic smile. “Sure it’ll come to me, where we met. Probably right after I leave, you know?”
“Now, Maroto!”
“Right, sure. Like I said, really sorry about this—Colonel Hjortt, was it? Won’t forget again, promise.”
Domingo shut his throbbing eye—he’d always thought he’d be ready to look head-on at his own demise, but ignoble as it had turned out to be, he wanted no part in it. Killed by a ravenous monster in the mountains, that he could have done… but the truth was he’d been murdered by the incompetence of his own soldiers, who had let a pack of overgrown devil dogs into his camp, and a crew of obvious spies in the bargain. And now, at the very end, he was to be executed by a man who didn’t even remember him. He tried to think of his murdered son, tried to think of the wife who had left them both to become an ambassador to Usba, but all he could think about was how fucking terrible it was that he should come this far, only to…
“Colonel?” Hjortt cracked his eye, and immediately regretted it. He wouldn’t live out the night, bashed-in as he felt, and now the last thing he would ever see was Brother Wan’s grisly visage. The anathema swam in and out of focus. “Sir, I know it must be hard to speak, but who were those soldiers who saved you? Come what may, I know you’ll want commendations for them.”
“They’re… dead.” Domingo’s tongue felt heavier than his eyelid. Stop them. Arrest them. Spies. But no more words would leave his mouth that night, nor for several days to come. When he finally returned to consciousness and found Brother Wan at his bedside, the long-delayed intelligence came streaming out.
“Did you stop them, Wan? Are they in chains? Maroto’s spies?”
“Um…” Brother Wan didn’t have to give more answer than that, and Domingo let out a protracted groan, the pain of his weakness in not clinging to consciousness a few moments longer overshadowing the throbbing aches that occupied most of his body. “Is there anything I can get you, Colonel?”
“Yes,” said Domingo, trying to sit up and spasming instead. “Every drop of the Black Pope’s poison. And if you’ve got any devils or spells, those as well. Call on your heathen god, call on the Deceiver, call on every power. We’re going to use your weapon, Wan, and we’re going to kill every Cobalt we can find, and we’re not going to be nice about it.”
CHAPTER
10
That Sullen boy. Damn. It wasn’t just that Ji-hyeon could tell he was into her, if only a little. She wasn’t as pathetic as that. Dozens of people had made passes at her, especially as her small band of mercenaries became a large one, and finally grew big enough to call themselves the Cobalt Company. Once there was a Cobalt Empire, she’d be beating them off with the blunt end of an ax, even her advisors. Especially her advisors.
She wasn’t callow enough to think most of these advances arose from earnest interest in her mind, body, or soul, though suitors had called on every conceivable combination of the three. Any idiot could see she was no more than a year out from a decisive conquest of Samoth, and everyone knew if you took Samoth you took the Empire. What’s more, she’d do it without any of that wandering-the-wilderness business of her spiritual predecessor. No, what it had taken Zosia half a decade to accomplish, Ji-hyeon would see completed in under two years, and without thousands of her followers starving in the process. Ji-hyeon’s victory was inevitable, which surely had something to do with all these attempts on her love life—get in before she was queen, before she realized people were just after her for power. As if she were that stupid.
Sullen wasn’t like that, but it was more than just his earnest attention that appealed. After all, some of the others had probably been genuine in their affection, too. In part it was his attitude, respectful but not overly so. Maybe it was just pig ignorance on the boy’s part, as Fennec suggested every chance he could, but to Ji-hyeon it seemed… real, as though she’d actually impressed him without even trying. Well, maybe she’d been trying a little, because she was always on, it seemed, trying to astound everyone, trying to fill the greaves of a woman whose death had elevated her from leader to god. Yet those quiet afternoons when she had him alone in her tent, taking kaldi with the quiet barbarian, she actually felt like herself again—not like Zosia Returned, as Fennec and the rest wanted, and not like Princess Ji-hyeon Bong of Hwabun, Betrothed of Prince Byeong-gu of Othean, etcetera, as her first father had wanted, but just like… Ji-hyeon. She didn’t like to think of it that way, but something in Sullen’s sincere interest in her moods instead of her ambitions, in her past instead of her future, reminded her of how things could be… of what she’d had with Keun-ju.
Keun-ju. It almost didn’t hurt to think of him now. Not that she was some moonstruck kid, hung up on the first boy to reach under her dress, but she had really loved him, and even now she caught herself daydreaming explanations for his duplicity, envision
ing scenarios to explain his actions. It wasn’t like Sullen had come along and all of a sudden Keun-ju was forgotten; anything but. She thought of Keun-ju more than ever now, and, strangest of all, Sullen encouraged her. When she had told him about their relationship, and how Keun-ju had betrayed Ji-hyeon to her first father, almost foiling her escape from Hwabun, he had nodded sympathetically and said:
“That’s bad. I’ve been bit by beasts, and I’ve been bit by… by loved ones, and loved ones bite worst. Sorry, Ji-hyeon.”
Sorry, Ji-hyeon. Simple, heartfelt, and oh so welcome. They’d been talking over kaldi, and even as the bowl went cold in her cupped hands he hadn’t pressed her for more or tried to talk everything better, the way Fennec would have. She couldn’t wait for him to meet Choi—when the laconic met the terse, who knew what might go unsaid?
A week later, another report came back that Keun-ju still hadn’t sent word. It was the same shitty news she had received each and every month since she’d first left Hwabun with only two of her three guards. It was the not knowing where he was or what had really happened that made the pain of missing him so much worse.
“Nah,” said Sullen, when she imperfectly articulated all this to him. “Pain’s good. It’s how you know you’ve been stuck, but also how you know you’ll heal. Only thing that doesn’t hurt is being dead.”
“You sure about that?” Ji-hyeon eyed him skeptically over her ryefire.
“Devils, I hope so,” said Sullen, blowing out his cheeks. “If being dead hurts, I don’t want no part of it.”
So he was funny, in an effortless sort of way, on top of the rest. But there was something else, too, and if it made her a shallow person, well, she had been called worse. What it was, simply, was this: Sullen was damn easy on the eyes.
Tall wasn’t always her thing, and lanky but tight-muscled could go either way, but combine all that with his rich, dark skin, wide, striking features, and that halo of shocking white hair? Spirits keep her in check. Then there were those eyes… they were closer to a cat’s than a man’s, with inky pupils arching all the way up the cornflower blue orbs, the sparkling brightness a pleasing contrast to his perpetually serious jaw line. He had his fair share of scars, and some more besides, his nose had been broken so many times it looked off-center, and his enormous puffball of hair could do with some shaping, but still: the boy looked damn good.
She almost kissed those velvety lips, too, the night of drunken nonsense, but then Fennec had burst in with more news on the small Raniputri force that had been dogging their cat, and so she was saved the conundrum of what to do after a first kiss. For now. Gods, devils, and spirits willing, she wouldn’t be spared that puzzle for too much longer. When Hoartrap informed her that the Raniputri riders would catch up to their slowly marching company within a day or two, and that his devils told him Choi, Maroto, and his noble entourage were but a few days out themselves, she decided it was time. What Sullen would do when his uncle returned had been left unsaid, as had the particulars of both her rise to power and his quest for his uncle—for all the time they’d logged since he’d crashed her camp, they had yet to revisit the aborted topic of their first conversation. It was time for that, too. Definitely.
Well, maybe.
“Did you name her?” Sullen asked, watching Fellwing squirm her way around the nearby heap of Ji-hyeon’s chainmail. The owlbat loved crawling across her armor, hooking tiny talons in the links.
“My father did,” said Ji-hyeon. “She was his before she was mine. They all bound their devils together, I guess—Dad, your uncle, Fennec, Hoartrap, the chevaleresse, and Zosia.”
“My uncle… has a devil?” It took little to arouse Sullen’s curiosity but quite a bit to surprise him.
“Not anymore, or else he’s good enough at hiding him to fool even Hoartrap. But they all captured the creatures together, before they captured Samoth.” Fellwing landed on her arm as she spoke.
“Horned Wolves don’t bind devils,” said Sullen glumly. “Not supposed to, anyway.”
“Nor do the Immaculate, as a rule,” said Ji-hyeon. “The royal family have some, but most people still think it’s disrespectful.”
“That’s one word for it,” said Sullen. “Disrespectful. The Jackal People take slaves, other clans, too, but not the Horned Wolves.”
“A devil’s not the same as a slave,” said Ji-hyeon, stroking Fellwing and summoning a throaty croak from her beak.
“Then set her free, and see if she stays,” said Sullen, which pissed Ji-hyeon right off.
“Is a horse a slave, then? What about cattle, or other livestock? I don’t intend to eat Fellwing, so I’d say she’s doing better than most beasts.”
“Huh,” said Sullen. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am,” said Ji-hyeon, pouring them more malty liquor.
“Horned Wolves raise cattle and fowl, and trade for mules. We don’t call them that, but they’re slaves, just as you said. Not so different from others, much as we like to pretend. We’re as bad as the rest of you.”
“Well, it’s nice to hear Saint Sullen admit such a mortal weakness.”
“What?” Sullen blinked at her. He could be thick sometimes, the same as anyone. “Oh. Ha, no. Yes. Didn’t mean to be a jerk. I’m bad, too, Ji-hyeon. Most people are, I guess. I’ve broken the laws of my clan. Killed one of my own people. Did everything wrong, and all because I was trying to do right. It’s not easy, doing good.”
It was hard to imagine the gentle, earnest man sitting across from her attacking anyone, let alone a fellow Horned Wolf. But he’d done something to come by those scars, and that white hair of his. Much as she liked him as an enigma, it was long past time she heard his tale. But that meant she had to go first.
“I’ve talked your ear off about Keun-ju, but you’ve never asked why I ran away from home, about what came before or after.”
Sullen fidgeted on his cushion, knocked back his drink with a grimace. “Yeah… Sorry. I’d like to hear, I would, but didn’t want to push you. I hate being pushed. Love Grandfather, but he’s pushy, and much as I want to be like him some ways, that ain’t one of ’em.”
“Oh hells, I wasn’t complaining! Quite the contrary,” said Ji-hyeon, brushing Fellwing off her. The devil flitted over to Sullen, and he stuck out a finger for her to perch on. She’d never seen her owlbat land on anyone else, and like everything else in this world, that could probably be an omen. “I would call you many things, Sullen, but not pushy. You’d really like to hear?”
“Definitely,” said the man, offering a sugarcube to the devil on his finger.
“So you know I’m a princess, and all that. Hwabun was a great place to grow up, though I didn’t appreciate what I had until I left. Is that how the Frozen Savannahs are for you?”
“Huh. Not exactly,” said Sullen, scratching his crooked nose. “See it different now that I’m gone, though. And I miss my mom. A lot.”
“I miss my first father, Jun-hwan, though the last year I was there we couldn’t stand each other. Yunjin, my older sister, said it was like that for them, too, when she was my age. Things get strained, especially when one of your dads is trying to marry you off. And I told you about Keun-ju, and what he meant to me. One of the conditions of the marriage my first father brokered was that Keun-ju wasn’t to come with me—it would be rude, he said, for me to take my own servant into a nicer house, and my fiancé was the son of the ruler of the Immaculate Isles. Houses don’t come nicer than that.”
Fellwing finally got her beak around Sullen’s sugarcube and carried it up to a crossbeam in the tent poles.
“So I’m supposed to leave behind my favorite guard, to marry this nebbish I’ve met all of zero times. The idea turned my stomach—I loved Keun-ju, even though I didn’t know he loved me back, not then. And so the same night I finally met my fiancé for the first time, I snuck off by myself. Well, not alone, my guards were there—Fennec, but back then I thought he was just a Chainite missionary named Mikal, and Choi, who you�
��ll meet soon, I hope, and there was Keun-ju. And we were out in some fields looking for spirits, near the Temple of Pentacles. That’s where the Immaculate Gate is, the one I ended up escaping through when I ran away a few months later—I told you about going through the Gate, right?”
“Uh-huh,” said Sullen, touching his hair with a wince. “I mean, a little. The first time we took kaldi you said it was kinda like going into a sea, only the sea was the First Dark.”
“Ha, I said that? Well, yeah, it kind of was… Anyway, we were real close to the one on the Isles, the Temple of Pentacles, and all of a sudden this… this spirit monster attacked us! There were smaller spirits in the field, in the pumpkins, but this one… this was like a bunch of them all mashed up together to make something huge, huge and scary and dangerous.”
“I can picture that,” said Sullen, nervously licking his lips. Oh, he had a song to sing when it was his turn to tell how his hair turned white, she knew it!
“So we fought it, the four of us against a monster straight out of the bedtime stories my second father would tell us about his adventures with Zosia and the rest of the Villains. And we won! It was… well, you’ve been in fights before, so you know what it’s like. First you’re too scared to move, and then something takes over, all your training wakes up, and your sword’s in your hand before you know it! And you’re fighting, fighting for your life! And it’s just… so…”
“Terrible,” said Sullen, looking into his ryefire bowl.
“Yes! No! I mean, it’s scary, but it’s also kind of wonderful, isn’t it? Dodging out of the way at the last minute, cleaving into your enemy, fighting alongside your friends and working together like you were born to do this and nothing more! Not even thinking, just… doing, and doing it so freaking good! Hack, slash, parry, dodge, hack again! Devils above, I get tingly just thinking about it.”
“Have you talked to a barber about that?” asked Sullen, and given his general demeanor, it was only by his sly smile that she knew he was joking.
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