A War in Crimson Embers

by Alex Marshall

  The horned wolf–drawn hut guided them, Nemi steering from the riding board beside Purna. This smaller girl was the only one who might be worthy of Best’s respect. Sullen claimed she had indeed killed the horned wolf whose hood she wore, and, if the song was to be believed, had done so fighting alongside both Best’s missing brother and the strange man who dressed as a restless spirit. The ghost-faced, big-wigged Outlander had taken Best’s place riding inside the hut with the faithless Brother Rýt, who hadn’t dared speak to her after defecting to the side of their captors.

  Her son walked along behind the wagon, shamelessly holding hands with the Immaculate he had been kissing as though they were already married. Perhaps they were, Sullen had not sung of his courtship to the foreign boy. As Best watched her battered, weak son stroll along with his one-armed love, a part of her begrudgingly acknowledged that as far as Outlanders went Keun-ju had proved both swift and brave when she had attacked, risking his life and losing his right arm to protect Sullen. But as soon as the sinful thought intruded she caught herself, recognizing it as the wiles of the Deceiver tempting her away from the righteous fury she must preserve. Besides, even if the Immaculate had been a great warrior before her coming, he was now without a weapon or the arm to wield it, and as soon as her oath was fulfilled she would deal with both her son and his crippled partner.

  If this war against the devils ever came to pass. It was her son who sang of it, after all, and while he certainly believed it that didn’t mean much, since Sullen’s head was forever full of fancies. If he did not present her with all the magical wonders and devilish horrors he had promised, and soon, she would consider her pledge more than paid and get on with carrying out the judgment passed down by the Horned Wolf Council.

  Looking down at the fading marks on her wrists that had never before known bondage, Best knew and acknowledged her soul was already in danger. She was succumbing to temptation, because she wanted to believe her son’s song, wanted the Council to be wrong and her boy to be right. Absurd as his many claims surely were, if even a few of them were true Sullen was actually stronger and wiser than she had ever let herself believe, a credit to his ancestors instead of a disgrace. And if he did indeed lead them to an epic battle with an ancient evil, well then, perhaps his spirit would not need rescuing from the Hell of the Coward Dead but could proceed directly to the Fallen Mother’s Meadhall. Perhaps he would even earn a virtuous death in combat, sparing Best from giving him one herself.

  “They make quite the pair—you must be so proud.”

  Best didn’t give the warlock the satisfaction of acknowledging he had again snuck up behind her. The first time had almost been her undoing, but now she knew he posed no immediate danger, and so as fast as her heart had leaped she calmed it back down. She didn’t answer his harassment, either, having learned that no good could come of speaking to witches, and according to her former ally Nemi of the Bitter Sighs this Hoartrap the Touch was the most dangerous sorcerer of them all. As the swollen, pale giant sidled up beside her she saw that in addition to his enormous wicker pack he carried a smoldering black pipe in one hand, and his other steadied a long white log balanced over his shoulder. Its smooth surface appeared to be meticulously carved with—

  Best growled at the unmistakable markings of the Jackal People and tried to speed away from the hated symbol and the man who carried it, but the sudden movement made her ribs feel like they were breaking anew. She steadied herself against a cypress.

  “Oh my, need a hand?” said Hoartrap, scratching his forehead with the yellow stem of his pipe. “Since mine are full we could always ask Keun-ju if he … no, wait, that won’t work.”

  “You seek to quarrel with me, witch?” she spat, forgetting her pledge to herself not to engage him. “How strong and sure you must be, to attack me from behind and then provoke me before I am recovered.”

  “Best of the Horned Wolf Clan, Mother of Sullen, Daughter of Ruthless, and Sister of Maroto, I swear on the Fallen Biddy you love so much that I haven’t begun to provoke you yet,” said Hoartrap, and jovial as he sounded he made Best’s hairs stand up in a way that hadn’t happened since she had thrown down on the horned wolf she had hunted as a girl. Nodding his ugly head at his uglier cargo, he said, “I see you’re admiring the log. I’d offer to let you hold it but it’s got some decent work on it and I’m worried it would pull you right off your feet … and besides, it’s not mine to pass around, it’s Sullen’s. I only just recovered it for him, since he misplaced it, and I had a real toot of a time finding it, I tell you what. Once you’ve splashed around the swamp as much as I have, one soggy bog looks the same as the next, if you catch—”

  “That belongs to Sullen?” she demanded, his song of the night before certainly not mentioning his owning any relics belonging to the Horned Wolf Clan’s most hated enemies.

  “I believe they all pitched in on it, but yes, he commissioned it from a Jackal Witch to help locate your missing brother—you know, I’m sure Sullen wouldn’t mind you touching it,” said Hoartrap, clenching his pipe in his teeth and swinging the post down from his shoulder to hold it out in both hands. “Here, just feel the grain on this tamarind, it—”

  “Be gone,” hissed Best. “You may frighten all the others, but you do not frighten me. I have no fear of scavengers who stoop to deviltry, who sneak instead of strutting. And you may not fear me yet, but you shall, Hoartrap the Touch, just before I send you to the Hell of the Coward Dead.”

  “So that’s a no to holding the magic log?” Hoartrap spoke around the pipe in the corner of his mouth, and then with a shrug he slung it back over his shoulder and gestured to the figures diminishing through the forest. “The others seem to be getting ahead so we better shake a leg, old girl … But while I have you alone just let me say that if you interfere in my plans again I will beat you to death with this very post.”

  “I will not be cowed by such as you,” said Best.

  “Well, moo to you, too,” said Hoartrap, giving the butt of the post a pat with his free hand and then taking his pipe back out of his mouth. A thread of saliva hung from the stem and then broke, swinging from his chin into the charms embossing his yellowing leather robe as he pocketed the still-smoldering bowl. “And in case I am speaking over your bullish head, be assured my plans very much involve your son. No touching him or I touch you, and unfair though I find it, ain’t nobody wants to get touched by the Touch.”

  “That … boy is not my son,” snarled Best. “No son of mine would rely on a witch to protect him.”

  “No? Well, that makes things much simpler for me! I would have felt a twinge of regret over beating Sullen’s mother to death, but seeing as you’re not related I shan’t shed a tear,” said Hoartrap, and then he sprang at her, seizing the post in both hands and swinging it like a massive club. Best darted backward, putting the tree she’d been leaning against between them as she raised her spear … or tried to, but the sudden jerking motion aggravated her ribs so badly that she staggered in place for a moment, paralyzed with anguish. But instead of bludgeoning her with his post he had already pivoted on his heel and marched away with it, cackling to himself as he went. He could have killed her where she stood, but instead he just toyed with her … and now showed her his back.

  If she had been able to draw her sun-knife she would have, such was her rage at his disrespect, but by the time her pain had passed enough to try it she had overpowered the impulse. Best of the Horned Wolf Clan was better than a backstabbing witch, and she would wait until she could make him look her in the eyes when she killed him. She would do it in front of Sullen, to show him how little the warlock’s protection meant in the face of a true predator. Then she would teach the boy what came of trafficking with sorcerers and worse, Jackal People. She would wait until her oath was paid or void, for she was a woman of her word, but there was nothing in what she had sworn to prevent her from slaying the lot of these degenerates as soon as she was free of her bond. Best knew her limits, acknowledged she di
d not possess all the answers, and as a mortal could be flawed in her judgment of good and evil, right and wrong—which was why she would deliver them all to someone who could. Not that she thought the Fallen Mother would have too high an opinion of Hoartrap the Touch, or his familiar, Sullen.

  Before that, though, she would let them lead her to the start of all their woes: her brother. Then all of these heretics would bear witness to the will of the Allmother, and Best would finally purchase peace with the righteous coin of her blazing wrath. Any who stood before her would burn. Any who turned their back on her would burn. The whole fucking Star would burn, if that was what it took to save it.

  CHAPTER

  14

  A crackling fire casting merry shadows on the wall. A dog dozing in front of the hearth. A bellyful of shredded potato cakes and applesauce, and a mug of boozy hunter’s tea warming her hands. The piquant tickle of exotic pipe smoke, and the homey scent of braided cinnamon bread wafting from a nearby oven. In all her years as Crimson Queen, Indsorith had never known such a peaceful night, not in Serpentine Keep where she had spent most of her rule nor her shorter tenure here in Castle Diadem nor any of the other palaces and lodges she had brought her court.

  “If I’d known how cozy my kitchens were I would have come down ages ago,” she told her nursemaid, huffing the hot herbal fumes of her tea and squirming around on the plush chairs they had dragged in from halfway across the castle.

  “I don’t reckon it was very cozy when things were going all guns down here,” said Zosia, tapping the ash from her corncob pipe as her warm blue eyes glided over the deep shadows that surrounded their island of firelight in the vast and dark kitchen complex. Not for the first time Indsorith felt like a ghost haunting her old life. Not for the first time she found she enjoyed the sensation. And not for the first time she immediately felt guilty at taking relief in her relinquishment of duty, involuntarily or not.

  “I should have made time to come here, to meet and thank the army of chefs and dogsbodies and turnip peelers who made sure I always ate so well …” Indsorith thought out loud. She must have fallen into the habit during the long agony of her solitary imprisonment, but instead of being embarrassed to have a witness to her doubts and regrets she found Zosia the ideal listener. Who else could have understood the petty pains of one so privileged but a fellow queen?

  “It’s good to get down in the scrum with your people whenever you can,” agreed Zosia, which just proved that spending time with your big-booted predecessor could also be a touch annoying. Indsorith didn’t think Zosia intended to sound judgmental, and after all the years of near-universal toadying there was something refreshing about talking to someone who didn’t coach her every word to avoid giving offense, but all the same the older woman sometimes came off as condescending.

  “I suppose her highness Queen Cobalt not only visited her kitchens on a daily basis but also took her turn stirring the stew?” said Indsorith.

  “Even with a devil to mind her, Queen Cobalt was too paranoid of being poisoned to touch anything that came out of these kitchens, to say fuck-all of walking my butt down here.” Zosia smirked. As usual the expression seemed both genuine and pained, as if she were so long out of the habit that the muscles in her face cried out whenever she smiled. “I installed my old camp cook in that servant’s station just down the hall from the royal chambers and lived off his rations, same as I did before we captured the castle.”

  “Ugh, always with the poisoning!” Indsorith took a gulp of tea, her every slow-healing wound flaring at the memory of the salted wine Y’Homa had drugged her with. “Even with all the precautions and preventatives and mystic alarms and miracle cures and potions and poison tasters I doubt I ever made it more than a year without something slipping through and making me sick as seven devils. That I lasted as long as I did without something taking me out for good just proves that I had a lot of people watching my back—for all their grief the nobles and colonels were sane enough to know I was the better alternative to a Chainite coup or Imperial infighting over the Crimson Throne.” Zosia was watching her over her mug, and rather than giving the older woman the pleasure of pointing out the obvious Indsorith added, “Or the Burnished Chain and their collaborators could have actually poisoned me any time they wished but chose to bide until now, as I unwittingly played into their hands for year after year.”

  “Perhaps, but I rather doubt it,” said Zosia. “I’m sure someone would have assassinated you years ago, if you weren’t relentlessly hard to kill. Don’t forget you almost bested the greatest swordswoman the Star has ever known.”

  “Almost,” said Indsorith, smiling as she admired the white slash she had etched into Zosia’s chin. The aging legend boasted quite a few scars, but that was the most pronounced. “Bad as you wanted to lose that duel, I should have given you a much bigger beauty mark.”

  “Implying I went easy on you is an insult to both my honor and your skill,” said Zosia, jutting her chin at Indsorith. “Besides, I happened to like my face just fine the way it was.”

  “Hmmm,” said Indsorith, giving the woman’s hard features a mock-serious inspection. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that she no longer looked upon Zosia with furious hatred, but she spoke truthfully when she said, “No, you look much better now, trust me.”

  “That so? Maybe like a fine cheese, the spreading cracks in my rind hint at an inner improvement.” Perhaps second-guessing this tipsy pronouncement, Zosia pursed her lips as the shadow of a blush spread between the finer scars on her cheeks. “In all seriousness, it was one of the hardest fights of my life.”

  “It should have been harder,” said Indsorith. “But I didn’t figure out why until your lover stormed the castle and tried to smear me all over the throne room.”

  “Eh?” Zosia frowned. “My … oh hells no! Maroto told me he dueled you after he thought you killed me, but he is not now nor has he ever been more than a friend. And a fair-weather one at that.”

  “But he did find out you’re still alive, then? You were reunited?” Indsorith remembered how heartbroken the man had seemed after she had bested him, as ruined as her father had been after her mother’s death in the work farm, and felt a pleasant hum in her chest. Here at long last was a story with a happy ending.

  “That we were, that we were,” said Zosia, but from the way she stared down into her mug it didn’t look as though this story had such a cheerful conclusion after all. Maybe no tale truly does, if you keep following it past the point where a savvy storyteller knows to trail off … “So what did he say that’s stuck with you after all these years?”

  “It wasn’t what he said, it was how he fought,” said Indsorith. “He was too angry, just like I was when I came for you. I thought my fury would make me unstoppable, but fighting him I realized anger just makes us sloppy. If I had learned to control my wrath before we fought I would have beaten you.”

  “Hmmm,” said Zosia, nodding a little as she considered this. “First off, you need a little anger or your heart won’t be in the fight. That’s even worse than being too pissed at your opponent. Second, if you hadn’t been so furious you might have done better, sure, but no way in all the forgotten war gods of Emeritus would you have actually taken me out. Sorry, kid, you may be good but I’m the best.”

  “Maybe once upon a time,” said Indsorith, unable to resist. “But that was a long, long, looong time ago.”

  “Not so long as all that!”

  “Then I challenge you to a rematch,” said Indsorith, leaning as far forward in her chair as her aching back would allow and extending a bandaged hand. “As soon as I’m fit enough to lift Moonspell we go again, you and I.”

  “And for what stakes will we duel this time, Your Majesty?” To Zosia’s credit she didn’t wait for an answer before shaking her challenger’s hand.

  “The only stakes that matter to women who have tasted every luxury life affords, and lost more than most people will ever win.”

  “Look, you�
��re an attractive young lady,” said Zosia, raising a deferential palm, “but as a matter of principle I refuse to assign sexual favors as a prize in any contest. Much to Maroto’s chagrin, the old—”

  “Bragging rights,” said Indsorith, rolling her eyes. It was lonely being queen, but not that lonely. “I’m talking about bragging rights.”

  “Of course, of course …” Another of those pained smiles. “So if you think you stand a chance, that must mean you’re no longer mad at me?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t your fault?” Indsorith said quietly, figuring she knew the answer but needing to hear it from Zosia all the same. “When I came for your head, and told you who I was and why I was there, why the fuck didn’t you tell me what happened to my people wasn’t your fault?”

  “Because it was,” said Zosia, slumping back in her chair and draining her tea. “You were right to blame me for the fall of Junius, and everything that came after.”

  “But those farms weren’t what you wanted,” Indsorith protested. “After I took the crown I found the reports about Karilemin, and the other work camps—I know that wasn’t what you wanted. I know you put a stop to them as soon as you found out.”

  “Too late to save your family,” murmured Zosia, and though their voices were low and Choplicker looked asleep, his tail began softly drumming on the hearthstones. “Too late to save a lot of families.”

  “You didn’t tell me because you thought as queen you should have somehow known what people halfway across the Empire were doing in your name,” said Indsorith, knowing that feeling herself.

  “What sort of a queen would I have been if I answered your challenge by blaming somebody else?” asked Zosia.

  “A good one,” snapped Indsorith. “The kind of queen I’ve tried to be. One who holds herself accountable to her subjects, but isn’t so crushed under the enormity of her responsibility that she accepts more than her fair share of blame. You don’t help yourself or your people by playing the martyr—letting the guilt of not doing more distract you from doing anything at all leaves the whole fucking Star worse off than it was before.”