A Crown for Cold Silver

by Alex Marshall

  “You should all see barbers first,” said Choi, inelegantly withdrawing from Purna’s embrace. “The white tents.”

  “You more than us,” said Maroto, not about to be outmaneuvered by a pup like Purna. “I can give Ji-hyeon the basics while you get patched up. I’d feel better if you’d see yourself tended to before bothering with a simple report, Choi.”

  Purna rolled her eyes and Choi looked rightly cautious. “I am… fine. We can give the report together, if you like.”

  “I would like that,” said Maroto, nodding seriously as Purna mugged from the other side of Choi. “We’ll go together.”

  “Have fun!” chirped Diggelby. “I’ve got ten taels that says I’m through a parcel of Agonist cheroots before you’re free of the command tent.”

  “I’ll take that,” said Hassan. “I can’t wait to see you puke up your guts after a month off the stuff.”

  “Double up with me?” asked Din, and Diggelby frowned when Hassan readily accepted. “You’re about to be down twenty, Count; Diggelby’s been lining his panties with tubāq leaves every morning since we left.”

  “Spying on a gentleperson during their toilet?” said Diggelby, abashed. “You have no shame, Duchess!”

  “Not really, no,” said Din, spitting a brown clod onto her friend’s boot. “I’ve just been chewing mine, since Choi said smoking was off-limits.”

  “It’s got to itch, absorbing it through your treasure,” said Hassan thoughtfully. “But I expect Diggelby’s long accustomed to that sensation in his knickers.”

  Choi resumed walking, Purna keeping pace with her, and Maroto hobbled quickly after, saying, “Surely you don’t have any interest in a stuffy tactical meeting, Tapai Purna?”

  “Quite the contrary,” said Purna, pulling her hood back a bit. It was still far too raw for her to be wearing it, and the stink must be singeing her nose hairs. “You’ve got to start somewhere, eh, Maroto? You wait and see, I’ll be one of Ji-hyeon’s Villains before this campaign is won!”

  “Huh,” said Maroto, waving at a gaggle of rough-looking camp followers who crouched around a breakfast fire at the outskirts of the tents. “I actually had some things I wanted to talk about, before any plans for the future get hammered hard. It concerns the both of you.”

  Choi looked as intrigued as Purna, for a welcome change. Purna asked, “And what might those things be? I’ve told you every day since we set out, Maroto, you’re a fine ally, but I’ll not be a rich man’s plaything. And as much as you say you’d like to have Choi right there on her knees beside me, sharing the load, I doubt she—”

  “Deceiver’s wounds, I never said that!” cried Maroto. “I’m being serious here, Purna!”

  Choi’s expression was unreadable, but she was definitely giving Maroto her full attention now. Purna winked at Choi and said, “Not that I don’t find you most comely, Captain Choi, because I verily do, but anything involving Maroto’s womb-hammer—”

  “Purna,” said Maroto, closing his eyes. A brilliant if wicked play on her part. “Please.”

  “Fine,” said Purna. “What’s the story?”

  “War’s no good,” said Maroto, having to wing it because his carefully prepared speech was completely forgotten, now that Purna had flustered him. “I’ve been in enough of them to know that, and know it well. And besides that, I took an oath to Queen Indsorith long ago that I’d not take up arms against her. I’ve been playing that promise way too loose until now, by pledging to defend you, Purna, but once the battles really begin I won’t be able to pretend I’m not breaking my vow. Not so long as I’m with this army.”

  “This oath,” said Choi, her expression all too readable now. “You never spoke of it to Ji-hyeon.”

  “No,” said Maroto. “But not because I’m working for that Crimson arsehole, nor will I ever. Fuck Queen Indsorith, and double-fuck her Empire. Not the good kind of fucks, neither. But I swore an oath on my devil, and that’s the end of the matter—truth be told I don’t know what’ll happen if I take one more step over the line, so I don’t mean to find out.”

  “Why?” asked Choi, then seemed genuinely taken aback for the first time since he’d met her. “I apologize. It is your past.”

  “No, no,” said Maroto, having picked up enough of Choi’s odd way of speech to know past meant private business to the wildborn. “I don’t owe either of you the tale, sure, but I’ll freely tell it, since we’re friends. And since I expect you to trust me.”

  “Damn,” said Purna, punching Choi’s arm to the woman’s confusion. “I’ve been trying to pry this verse of the song out of him since the Panteran Wastes. He must really want to get into your—”

  “Purna!”

  “Sorry, sorry, go on!”

  “I’ll make it short, give you the full version some night around a fire,” said Maroto, since they were already getting into the camp and he wanted to make his play before they reached Ji-hyeon’s tent. “My… Zosia, Cobalt Zosia, you all know about her, that we were…”

  “Your general, yes?” asked Choi.

  “That,” said Maroto, the despair of her passing hitting him all over again, in this blue-bedecked camp that should have been hers. “And… I loved her. Truly. Like no other, before or after. And she loved me, too, I know it. Old Watchers keep me, I love her still.”

  “From the songs, I figured…” said Purna after they walked a ways in silence, both women slowing their paces to Maroto’s relief. Even with Choi’s ministrations it felt like his knee was going to rip open again from all this limping about on it. “I’m so sorry, Maroto.”

  “Dusty as it is, the wound still feels fresh,” said Maroto, and snorted. “It’s the stuff of songs, all right, and that’ll teach you to aspire to such glories. The good ones all end in tears for everyone but the bard. If she and I had but a wee bit more time… shit. Anyway, she died. Queen Indsorith cut her down in a duel and threw her corpse off the top of Castle Diadem, earned her crown the same way Zosia won hers. You all know that, it’s ancient history.”

  By Old Black’s teeth, this was harder than Maroto expected. He cleared his throat, cleared it again. “I was away from Diadem when it went down, but you’d best believe I returned as soon as I heard. Meant to tear down the whole fucking place, meant to make the castle itself bleed out and drown the city in blood, till it reached the very throne room… But Indsorith was ready for me. Offered me the same as Zosia had offered her. A duel to decide the matter. Fair terms. She didn’t even want to toss me down onto the city after, if I couldn’t lay her low, just my oath I’d be done making trouble for her… and… and I fucking lost.”

  Devils, was that his voice breaking? They stopped walking, and Purna put a hand on his shoulder. Cracking his neck, he pulled himself together. “So that’s it. The short version. Why I can’t in good faith keep on with General Ji-hyeon. Really, though, even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

  “Yellow as a canary’s marrow,” said Purna, trying to help him wash down the lump in his throat with a swig of her sass. Daring to glance at Choi, he saw neither suspicion nor scorn in her ruby pupils, but maybe… sorrow? It cut him, that look, like strange as he’d thought her up until recently, the wildborn was no different from him, that she knew nothing could be worse than failing those you’ve sworn to save. Then Purna slapped him on the back again, said, “So what you’re telling us is you’ve got an excuse, but even if you didn’t, you’d still be too fear-footed to throw down.”

  “There’s being scared, then there’s being smart, and while I’ll fess the two are often confederates, this ain’t about being scared of a scrap.” Maroto waved his hand at a crowd of youths running sword drills in one of the camp’s clearings. “Once the Imperials come down on us, all of them are dead.”

  He pointed past the practicing soldiers to one of the kitchen tents beyond. “All them. And everyone there, and there, and there, too. To Ji-hyeon’s credit, it won’t be as bad as when Zosia led us. Things were real dark then, on account of the Imperials b
urning any village they didn’t trust, and they didn’t trust many by the end, so it wasn’t just fighters in our camps, it was all their families, too, young and old. So it won’t be that bad… but it’ll be bad enough.”

  As they passed the drilling boys and girls, an Usban knight leading them, Purna said, “Really, it can’t be as hopeless as all that! Everyone dies? I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe not everyone,” said Maroto. “But it’ll be worse for the survivors, believe me. And even if we pay so high a price that Ji-hyeon wins her war, what then? You think the Imperial provinces will just hand over their titles and castles to another conquerer? You think she’ll be able to rule, without killing a hundred thousand more, be they soldiers or serfs? Even after all Zosia did, or tried to do, once she had the throne it was like she wasn’t even there. Orders she gave got mistranslated or mysteriously lost; her move to fix the crooked system by sending the rich folks to work the fields was a fucking disaster of epic proportions. More died in her reforms than died in the war, I reckon. Not that it was all her fault: the whole ruddy Empire worked against her. You want to bring a land together, give them a common enemy, and for the merchants, nobles, and politicians, that’s exactly what she was. Why would it be any different this time around? I won’t say there aren’t folk who benefit from a well-fought war, but you rarely find them within a hundred leagues of the front.”

  Devils, but Maroto was parched after that sermon. They’d come up on the busy cooks, and he dug around in his purse for a suitable bribe. Choi and Purna waited until he’d talked a furry-faced wench into selling him a wineskin of retsina before they continued on their way, Choi surprising him again by cutting straight to his bone. So to speak.

  “You would have us disgraced with you, before we even give the Imperials a chance to repay us for the wolves?” She didn’t sound mean about it, so much as… perplexed.

  “Nothing disgraceful about avoiding a pointless war,” said Maroto, offering her the skin after he’d drained half of the pinewine in one tug. “Not suggesting we go off and join a Khymsari monastery, neither—there’s more battles than you could ever hope to wage, just waiting out there for you. For us. We work well together, don’t say we don’t. The three of us, and Diggelby, Din, and Hassan, if they’re game, could be the Six Chums or what the fuck ever, seeking out adventure on every arm of the Star. Monsters and maniacs, devils and darker things yet are lurking in forgotten ruins and dungeons, and we could—”

  “No,” said Choi, though she’d taken a slug of his wine willingly enough before passing it to Purna. Then, thoughtfully, she added, “Thank you, Maroto.”

  “Yeah, I dunno, either,” said Purna apologetically. “This is… I mean, the Star will always be there, right, but a war like this doesn’t come along often! It’s easy for you to say they’re no fun, since you’ve already had your sport. I’d prefer to fight one myself, a’thank you very much.”

  “That’s not why,” said Choi, though whether she was speaking for her own reasons or Maroto’s he never knew, because just then Chevaleresse Sasamaso emerged from a tent, and after doing a double take, hurried over to them.

  “Here’s a sight to please the gods of war and wine! What news from our flanks, friends?”

  “News that first goes to General Ji-hyeon,” said Choi, and it was only the resurgence of her frostiness that reminded Maroto it had thawed for a few clement days. “We have only now returned.”

  “Really?” Chevaleresse Sasamaso gave Maroto a sly grin. Fucking Crowned Eagle People, always with that knowing look shit. “Well, let’s not waste any time, then! I’ll show you to the general’s tent; since we settled in here I’ve been moving her nightly, as you ordered, Captain Choi.”

  Chevaleresse Sasamaso led them at a sweaty canter through the camp, ill-respecting the fact that Maroto and his people had just spent a month doing little but hustle around on aching legs. Neither Choi nor Purna responded to his frequent glances. Well, so much for happily ever after, anywhere but here. Making matters worse, when they got to Ji-hyeon’s tent they were informed by the guards that she was still carrying on a private meeting with a Raniputri emissary who had arrived the night before, and not even Choi was permitted to enter. Awkward.

  Chevaleresse Sasamaso insisted they follow her to meet some other visiting dignitaries, but Maroto was only half listening. As was always the case when a pass or a business proposal failed spectacularly, all he could think about was getting away from Choi for a while… but really, looking at the whole tapestry here, what the fuck was he supposed to do? Wander off on his own again, swinging his mace by his own bad self as though he were some punk kid waving his treasure around? That was a loser’s play, right there, and Maroto was no—

  “Craven!”

  Maroto tripped over his walking stick at the outburst, looked frantically around at the tents hemming them in. Felt like an idiot as he did; this exact scene had played out a couple of times over the years, when he’d be drinking in some tavern or squirming in some stinghouse and a random punter from the Noreast Arm would insult one of his companions with the term, but Maroto would jump up, thinking somebody had recognized him from—

  “God of devils,” he whispered as his eyes landed on his father. His dead father, mind, his long, long-dead father. Considering the old bastard was supposed to be twenty years with his ancestors yet towered over half a dozen feet in the air, strapped to some mule-faced kid’s back, Maroto figured he could be excused for not noticing him immediately.

  “Oh, how you’ll be wishing it was she instead of your daddy,” said Da, his smile wicked as those of the horned wolves who had harried them down the mountains. The old man’s mount stepped fully out of the shade of a tent now, and Maroto nodded in appreciation of the young pup’s vigor. He didn’t look like much, but the casual way he moved, as though he didn’t have a mean old fucker tied to his shoulders, implied a certain ferocity. That, and silver where due, his big snow-white helmet of hair looked fleet as fuck. “Craven, Craven, Craven, you’ve let yourself go, m’boy! Look at that gut! Are you with child? Has one of those women put a baby in your belly?”

  “You…” Maroto wiped his face with the back of his hand, blinked at the stony kid supporting his dad. Could it be? Could it not? Who else but… “Nephew?”

  “Sullen,” supplied Da, and right enough, the kid’s mug tightened even more as he stared down Maroto. He’d earned that name, to be sure. Recognizing that other folk accompanied Maroto and they had stopped as well, Da switched over to Immaculate, probably trying to make his shaming all the more public. “He did what my own son was too craven to try. He stayed with me, saved me, carried me home, tended my back when even your sister refused to help. Took on the wrath of every Horned Wolf to see me through. He’s the son I never had.”

  “Damn,” said Maroto, not put out in the slightest by his father’s vitriol; how could he be, when it was proof that this was really his old man? That both of his kin had somehow survived that terrible day, in spite of his cowardice? The three of them had songs for one another, no doubt, but for now he raised a fist to knock against his nephew’s knuckles for having the strength to do what he had not. “You’re either crazy or stupid, kid—both times I broke clan law I took off with the quickness, and still barely made it out alive. Can’t imagine trying to live a week around those arseholes once you got on their bad side, say fuck-all of coming up in the village, staying to earn a name and a few thaws after, to look at you.”

  Sullen didn’t say a damn word, and didn’t meet Maroto’s fist, either. Left him hanging like a fucking punk. That would be enough for a fight, right there, between two proper Horned Wolves, family or no… but they weren’t Horned Wolves anymore, not really. Maroto dropped his fist. Give the pup a bone and all…

  “It’s an honor to meet you both,” said Purna, stepping up next to Maroto. “I am Tapai Purna, a—”

  “Ruddy heretic!” gasped Da, pointing at the telltale horns jutting from the hood Purna had pulled back on he
r shoulders. “We’re all exiles now, Craven, but to dress your grungy lover in the hide of your people? Where is your decency, man? Where is your shame?”

  “I’m not his lover, and if you call me grungy again I’ll wear your skin instead,” said Purna, as easy as she’d offered the introduction. Her hands rested casually on the hilt of her kakuri and the butt of her pistol. “Maybe bridle up that big boy of yours when I’m done—looks like you could talk a whole cart’s worth of shit from up there, out of reach of repercussions.”

  Sullen’s beefy fingers rolled up into fists, but Da just smirked and patted his grandson’s shoulder. “Well, that’s about as respectful a tone as I’d expect from one of Craven’s confederates. I think I heard that a tapai is a prince of the Farthest Mountains, aye? Tell me Prince Purna, how much did your royal jester here trade you for that pelt?”

  “She—” Maroto began, but Purna spoke for herself.

  “Took it myself, not a week past. I’ll fess your son helped, and our comrade Choi here, too, but it was me who delivered the beast back to the First Dark, so it’s me who wears his crown. If you know my people, you know we don’t wear what we don’t kill… So are you an old fool who’s forgotten what little he once knew, or are you just an asshole looking to get his face broken in?”

  Da had his smile on now, the hungry one he wore just before taking a bite of you, but Sullen of all people intervened.

  “Tapai Purna,” he grumbled. “Grandfather’s had his say, you’ve had yours, and all with ears ken the victor. Let it be enough.”

  “First my feckless son leaves me for dead, and now my grandson would light the pyre,” clucked Da. “Very well, very well, peace to you, Prince Purna—after all, can’t say Sullen here’s had the opportunity to claim such a prize as you wear like a silk scarf wrapped ’round the fat neck of a trader’s spoiled husband. Where we come from that means you deserve more respect than I showed ya. Peace to you, Tapai, from Ruthless of the Horned Wolves—we’ll wrestle properly in Old Black’s Meadhall someday, when I have my legs again.”