A Crown for Cold Silver

by Alex Marshall

  “Easier than you think,” said Ji-hyeon smugly. “We have people inside the Immaculate army, working the wall, and we’ve got way more inside Linkensterne—the merchants want this to happen even more than we do. They’ve been preparing all year, and when we take the wall they’ll take the city. Then the citizens of Linkensterne all pitch in to help finish the wall while my coalition of Cobalts and Imperials defend the construction and hold the border from the Immaculates—the wall will be completed by this time next year. And after that, Linkensterne is its own republic, guarded by the Cobalt Company, with freedom and fortune for all.”

  “That’s good,” said Zosia, impressed. “Really good. Your first father might not be too pleased, seeing as he’s got that loyalty for his Arm as you only get from an immigrant’s kid, but for a dyed-in-the-wool double-crosser like your other dad, it’s a huge get. Fennec and the rest earn a healthy cut of the profits, so nobody’s complaining there, since they all know by now a small victory is better than a huge almost. Looking back, maybe that was my problem—I dreamt too big. Maybe instead of going after the Crimson Empire I should have contented myself with a smaller conquest, one I could have managed better.”

  “Except…” said Ji-hyeon, unable to stop herself from smiling as cheekily as her father. There was the family resemblance, right enough.

  Zosia thought about it, came up with nothing. “Except what?”

  “Except a daughter isn’t some devil you can order about.”

  “No,” said Zosia, twirling it around some more and still not getting much. “So what’s your angle, then? Squeeze your old man out, take Linkensterne for yourself?”

  “Ha!” Ji-hyeon shook her head, as though she were the smartest woman in the room. “Now, just what prize do you think a powerful warlord would pursue, a woman weaned on songs of the Cobalt Queen? A general with an army willing to ride after her into a Gate, if she asked them, armed with devils and black magic, at a time when a bloated empire is weak from civil war? What would you do, Zosia, faced with the dilemma of familial piety or something far more glorious?”

  Well, well, well. Zosia found herself grinning as wide as the girl sitting across from her. “Samoth.”

  “Yup,” said Ji-hyeon, looking more like a general than a princess as she reached under the table and pulled out a map, followed by another jug. “And since you have your own business with the Empire, I’m more than willing to bring you on as one of my captains. You can be one of General Ji-hyeon’s captains… or should I start calling you and your friends my new Villians?”

  Zosia bridled at the girl’s choice of words, but what came next was too tasty to spit out for the sake of pride.

  “Whatever I call you, Queen Indsorith is yours, Zosia, as I imagine you have unfinished business with her from that time she executed you. Whoever else you want is yours in the bargain, so long as you come clean with me about what happened back then, and any other pertinent details you might have. Pledge yourself to my flag, Zosia, and let’s remind those Crimson cowards why they fear the Cobalt twilight!”

  “That’s quite the offer,” said Zosia, getting more excited the more she thought about it. This could work out really damn well for both of them. “Shit. So long as that chainmail lingerie of yours isn’t the mandatory uniform, I’m in. Where does a long-in-the-tooth recruit sign up?”

  “Pack that pipe of yours, Captain Zosia,” said Ji-hyeon, clearing the table and unfurling the map. “We planned on capturing Cockspar next, but their regiment cut us off in the mountains, and so we beat a retreat down here.”

  “The Azgarothian regiment, you know who’s leading them?” asked Zosia, her heart quickening. She couldn’t believe of all the luck—

  “Uh-huh, I wrote it down here,” said Ji-hyeon, pointing to some chickenscratch on the corner of the map. “Heart? No, Hjortt, Colonel Hjortt—he’s leading the Azgarothians, but my scouts said there were Myuran flags flying over part of the army, and I don’t know who they’ve got in charge.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Zosia, licking her lips. This day just kept getting better and better—she’d be seeing her old chum the thumbless colonel a lot sooner than she’d hoped, and this time she wouldn’t let her theatrical streak get in the way of what needed doing. Efrain Hjortt was a dead man. “What’s your strategy?”

  “Well, the Imperial regiments can’t be more than a few days behind us, so Fennec wants us to pack up and get moving now, but I think the Cobalt Company might be done running. You’re the expert, though, so I’d appreciate your insight.”

  “I think Fennec’s a coward, and you’re set up nicely to meet the Imperials in open combat,” said Zosia, trying not to let her eagerness show. “Better put on some more beans, then, it’s going to be a long night.”

  Zosia hunkered over the map, relieved she’d let Hjortt off the first time, so she could have the pleasure of getting him now. The only thing that tempered her excitement was the two devils in the corner, silently staring into each other’s eyes.

  CHAPTER

  12

  War was indeed coming, and you didn’t need to drink Immaculate devil milk to gain that insight. The signs became increasingly obvious as Sister Portolés and Heretic left the Isles and cut back across the Empire, making for the highway that would take them down to the southern provinces, where the Cobalt Company was causing so much trouble. Open towns that she had paraded through with her Imperial regiment but a year before had erected new walls; way stations that had once welcomed all travelers now viewed even a war nun of Diadem with suspicion. Everywhere she traveled with Heretic, motley militias performed drills in barren fields instead of harvesting ripe ones, and everywhere they were questioned as to their business, and scowled at when Portolés sternly rebuffed all queries.

  That King Jun-hwan had claimed it wouldn’t be the war they were expecting worried at the back of Portolés’s mind, like the urge to sin. She had done a good thing, as far as that went, not taking Brother Wan with her. Yet in her soul she knew Queen Indsorith had been right to advise her to view even her brethren and superiors as potential saboteurs—if the Burnished Chain had sent Efrain Hjortt to Kypck as a means of provoking Zosia into attacking the Empire, they would have a vested interest in preventing Portolés from finding her and telling her the truth. This distressing possibility was given credence when she and Heretic crested a grassy butte overlooking the languid Heartvein and caught sight of four black-robed riders racing up the road after them. They weren’t much more than a mile off.

  “Hmmmm,” she said, surveying their surroundings for a defensible position. Portolés had fought well for the Chain during the civil war, and after the reconciliation she had worked just as hard to earn the right to serve with the Fifteenth Regiment. Her time first warring against the Imperials and then working for them had honed her natural intelligence toward self-preservation. Alas, the butte was as gentle a hilltop as a lazy pony could hope for, with a lone stand of poplars set just off the road, and nothing on the far side of the rise but a leisurely ride down to a tranquil valley. “They’ve timed it right—probably waited all morning for us to clear the forest.”

  “How’s that?” Heretic looked back, forth, up, down, everywhere the nun had tilted her head. “What is it?”

  “My people,” said Portolés. “Come on, let’s picket the horses in those trees before they’re on us.”

  “Was wondering when you’d stop for a pray,” said Heretic. “You expecting them, or is this an impromptu service?”

  “Heretic,” said Portolés as she dismounted, “how would you like the opportunity to kill some clergy?”

  “Um.” Heretic glanced back over his shoulder. From here the inclined approach and its riders were obscured by the wide top of the butte. “Not sure how you want me to answer that, Sister Portolés. It might surprise you to know I’m not really a hardened killer so much as a, um, gentle knave?”

  “I didn’t ask if you had killed, I asked if you wanted to,” said Portolés, tying her ho
rse and the pack mule to the thickest tree. “Hop down so I can unlock you.”

  “This…” Heretic looked genuinely nervous for the first time since she had freed him from the Office of Answers. “I’ll level with you, sister, if this is a test I’m bound to fail. So if you’re looking for an excuse to do me after all our time together, I’d prefer you just looked me in the eye when you put that hammer to my skull.”

  “Heretic,” said Portolés as she tied his horse, “if you aren’t willing to fight next to me, I’ll do just that, right now.”

  “No need to rush into these things,” said Heretic, dismounting so quickly he almost fell. She’d taken to letting him ride with his legs unshackled, and in a moment his hands were free. “I don’t suppose—”

  “Take those two crossbows I bought in Linkensterne, string, nock, and load them, then set them on that wide stump back there,” said Portolés. “The short sword in the bedroll looked to be about your size. Now.”

  “Sure, sister,” said Heretic, rubbing his red wrists. “But, um, you are going to talk to them first, yes? It might not come to anything, right?”

  “Doubtful. In a Chainhouse or the Dens we debate with our tongues, out here I expect the saints will do the talking.” Portolés hefted her maul. “Saint Orakulum here died at the Encounter of the Condemned Earth, thirty-three years ago. His bones stoked the forge, and his spirit dwells ever more in its steel. He will provide a stirring counterpoint to any argument my fellows lodge.”

  “This right here,” said Heretic as he quickly removed the weapons from the back of the pack mule, “this is why people fear the Chain. If you settle your internal differences this way, what hope is there for dissent among the common folk?”

  “You’re smarter than you let on,” said Portolés. “I’ll parley with them, but you’ll see soon enough the way the wind blows. Bows on the stump, sword in the ground beside them, and then lay a saddle blanket over them so they’re hidden but easy to get out. And mind the safeties are—”

  The bow Heretic had loaded with shaky hands went off, an arrow launching up through the rustling poplar branches. Portolés didn’t look to see where it landed.

  “On second thought, forget the blanket. Stand in front of the stump to obscure them with your body, until you need to start shooting.”

  “I thought the Chain forbade crossbows, sister?”

  “Haven’t you cottoned on yet?” Portolés showed him her file-blunted teeth. “I’m a bit of a heretic myself.”

  “Yeah?” Heretic wiped sweat from his face, almost dropped the bow as he did. This was shaping up to be a right proper martyrdom.

  “If we fight, we kill, and if we kill one, we kill them all. If any escape they’ll soon be back, with a local posse or two. If that happens the writs I carry mean very little to the illiterate. Be ready to fire at the ones in the rear. Less chance of your shooting me that way.”

  “If I… how will I know when to—”

  “You’ll know,” said Portolés, and, hefting her hammer, she stepped out into the wide dirt track. Above her, dollops of puffy cream clouds floated across the afternoon sky. Beneath her, the browning grass in the center of the road was beaten down from countless hooves and feet that had recently traveled this way. Before her, a cowled rider crested the butte and slowed, the other three quickly appearing behind the first and reining in their horses as well.

  With enough time, she could have strung a rope across the road, secured it to a rock on one end, and wrapped it around a tree on the other, so Heretic could pull it tight and trip the first horse.

  With enough time, she could have dug a trench to effect the same.

  With enough time, all the sinners on the Star could repent, and when the Sunken Kingdom returned from the waves there’d be no more need for hell.

  When you were short on time, all you had was action, and the belief your action would work. Here, on this crisp autumn day so much like the one in Kypck, Portolés believed that Heretic wouldn’t shoot her in the back in hopes of endearing himself to their pursuers—faith in a man whom she wouldn’t have trusted not to murder her in her sleep when they’d first set out. How had it come to this, arming a confessed heretic and traitor to help her fight against her own people? In a few short years she’d gone from fighting alongside her brethren against Imperials during the civil war to riding alongside the Crimson soldiers, and now she was preparing to battle other war clerics in the service of the Queen of Samoth.

  Well, everything happens.

  And verily, it did.

  As Portolés expected, there was no pretense. Why should there be, among servants of the Burnished Chain? The Chain Canticles warned that any anathema might harbor the talent for looking into the thoughts of another, and with even a sliver of a chance that Portolés could smell their deception, they wouldn’t risk coming down from their horses to talk. Instead, they made to ride her down in the road.

  The lead rider wore the mask of an anathema, as did two of the three behind him. Over his head buzzed the wide, smoking halo of a censer-star he swung in a deadly gyre, which explained why his fellows gave him a healthy lead. As he bore down on Portolés, a crossbow bolt flew under his steed’s thundering hooves, and then a second missed horse and rider by an even wider margin. So much for Portolés’s order that Heretic fire on the clerics in the back. The first rider was almost on her, the chain of his weapon still whisking the air above him.

  As soon as Portolés made a step to evade in either direction he would bank his horse to pass her on the opposite side and bring the enormous iron censer down upon her.

  So she waited in the center of the road, forcing him to make the choice of which side to pass her on. Twenty yards out, the horse veered into the right-hand wagon rut. At ten yards Portolés darted to that side as well, and then passed the rut, even as the horse flew down like an avenging devil. She pivoted, putting all of her might into the swing, blind for a moment to everything but the wide, empty butte before her, and then came back around with her maul. The two-handed hammer struck the charging horse, but where, she could not tell, for her maul was sent flying from the impact, and, refusing to release the handle of the weapon, she flew along with it.

  The first bounce on the solid turf knocked her senseless, but the second restored her, and the third turned into a roll across the grass. She was on her feet, then, but immediately toppled back onto her arse, the world spinning as furiously as the first rider’s censer-star, the chain of which had wrapped tight around both horse and rider as they fell from her hammer. She staggered upright and took in this miracle, the monk broken and bound to his steed’s mighty neck by the long chain that had ensnared them both, the smoking head of the censer partially embedded in his side. Then the other three riders surrounded her, their horses stamping as they were slowed to a walk, and the time for contemplating miracles was passed.

  It was as Portolés had feared—they meant to take her alive, the first rider intending to lay her out or disarm her with his long, blunt weapon rather than execute her. That hadn’t worked, so now the others quickly glided off their horses. One of the anathemas broke into a sprint toward the trees where Heretic lurked, the other two clerics slowly advancing on Portolés. The masked anathema was slight but quick, his scimitar flashing in the sun, and the barefaced pureborn man had shoulders nearly as wide as Portolés’s to power his mace. From the poplars, Heretic screamed. Soon two-on-one would become three against, and dizzy or not, Portolés knew her only chance was in not waiting a moment longer.

  She made as though she were heaving her massive hammer at the pureborn, but as the anathema darted in to gut her with his curved blade she reversed her swing, bringing the butt of the weapon up instead of the head down. The long handle of the hammer connected with his sword, slowing it enough that when its blade slid up the shaft and into the bottom of her fist it only clipped off her pinky and ring fingers, instead of doing worse damage.

  She flicked her injured hand out, and her remaining fingers hooke
d the anathema by his dangling rosary and jerked him into her. She brought her skull down like a comet, striking him between the eyes. The point of his scimitar jabbed into her side, rooted around as she headbutted him again. He went limp, but by then the pureborn was atop her with his mace. She had no choice but to choose between the falling anathema or her maul. With a wounded hand, the lighter weapon was preferable, so she clumsily tossed her hammer into the oncoming mace. The pureborn’s weapon clattered against her maul, knocked it from the air, and concluded its trajectory, dull metal crushing the bones in the forearm she brought up to block her face.

  The pain sent her reeling, despite her training, despite her intimate familiarity with the sensation of being destroyed by her church. Twisting her thumb and the two remaining fingers of her only responsive arm into the woolen cassock of the limp anathema who still dangled in her grasp, she set her heel and slung him around. The mace came down again, faster than she could track it, but this time it collided with the dazed anathema she put between herself and the pureborn. He didn’t make a sound as the weapon clobbered him. Instead of falling back at this unexpected defense, the pureborn pressed his advantage, meaning to beat his colleague out of Portolés’s hand.

  She met his assault with one of her own, shoving the drooping body into the pureborn’s path, and then following after it with the last of her wobbly momentum. Slinging her numb, broken arm out and releasing the anathema with her other, she tackled the pureborn. Big man he was, but Portolés was bigger, and with the added weight of the anathema to aid her, she took him to the ground.

  Grunts, and a groan. The pureborn tried to roll free, the blood-slickened wedge of the anathema between them making him slipperier than a Tangordrim catfish… but before being taken into the church, Portolés had fed herself and her sisters on fish she pulled barehanded from under rocks in the River Tangor. The sisters the Burnished Chain had burned alive, deeming them far too corrupted for even the salvation of the ecclesiastical surgeons. Portolés could no longer recall their names.