Or the regular kind, in Zosia’s case, considering Maroto’s thoughtless wish to see her again was probably what had led to the massacre of her husband and people. He hadn’t intended such horrors, of course, he’d just been a strung-out junkie speaking rash words to his devil-rat, but that was Maroto all over, wasn’t it? He never meant to free Crumbsnatcher and get Zosia’s loved ones killed in the bargain, just like he’d never meant to collude with the Vex Assembly, it just happened … just like it always did.
Yet when Zosia hadn’t been able to magically stop Purna from bleeding to death Maroto had leaped to label her a murderer, swearing the gnarliest kind of vengeance if he ever caught her … just like he always did. It was always different when somebody else did something stupid or selfish, wasn’t it, Craven? Maybe if Zosia had wished harder she could have saved Purna, sure, but then if Maroto had been protecting his protégé the way he was supposed to then she never would’ve gotten stabbed in the first place. Her blood wasn’t on Zosia’s hands, it was on Maroto’s … along with the blood of Zosia’s husband, and her village, and, well, the rest of the fucking Star, given what the Vex Assembly was unleashing upon the world.
You would think that would be the worst, wouldn’t you? Knowing you’d doomed your race to extinction, and all to buy yourself a few more cheap meals, watered-down drinks, and sweaty lays before the curtain dropped. Yet almost more bitter than that global guilt was the shame he felt for not coming clean to Zosia when he’d had the chance. He should have looked her dead in the eye and fessed it as soon as he’d figured out what’d happened—he’d as good as murdered her family, the least he could give her was the truth. Instead he stayed sitting on his fat arse, watching her walk away into the night, telling himself he just needed time to process everything, that he’d sleep on it and do the right thing in the morning.
He would always do the right thing, in the morning. Craven, his people had dubbed him, because the Horned Wolf Clan had always seen him for what he was instead of what he pretended to be. Now he would probably never see Zosia again in this life, having denied her the most important gift he could have ever offered—closure on the hardest heartbreak of her life.
Unless Hoartrap had told Zosia. Maroto had let the truth slip to the warlock just before being whisked off to Jex Toth, and what if as soon as he’d got back to the camp Hoartrap had told Zosia everything? What if Zosia already knew?
That was a hard one, but in the end he hoped Hoartrap had indeed betrayed him. She had a right to know who was responsible for her loss, whoever told her. Zosia didn’t want Maroto’s love, she never had, but maybe by taking on her hatred he could help her heal. Most folk seemed down on hatred these days, but in his experience it at least gave you a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Take Hoartrap, for example. Fucking Hoartrap. Maroto had always known the warlock was as nasty a stool to ever fall out of the First Dark’s arse, but even still, you don’t fuck over your friends! Being dumped on Jex Toth and then taken to the roach-riddled bosom of the Vex Assembly had been a real wake-up call for Maroto, yes in-fucking-deed. Now that he knew the naked truth about the Touch he doubted there was a worse monster walking the Star, nobody more deserving of a slow, agonizing death at Maroto’s hands …
But every time he tried to get excited about the prospect of murdering the evil fucker he remembered sitting watch with Hoartrap on a dozen different battlements, a hundred different taverns, sharing drinks and pipes and songs and jokes. He remembered the time down in the catacombs of Obel where he’d slipped into a goblin-frog spawning pool, done and fucking dusted, only to have Hoartrap dive in and rescue him. And he remembered how nobody else would laugh at his impressions of the rest of the Villains, especially his Fennec, which even Maroto knew was weak …
Woof. It was hard work, hating your old friends, even when they deserved it. Better to look ahead than behind, anyway, and looking after your new cohort was more important than stewing over those ghosts of your past. He scooted forward on the crow’s nest, trying to pick out Niki-hyun or Dong-won from the figures moving around the decks below. Would’ve been easy, if they’d been allowed to keep their duds, but no sooner had the Chainite crew reclaimed the ship Bang had prematurely dubbed the Empress Thief than Maroto and the pirates were obliged to convert on the spot. The penitent robes were less breathable than a tarshirt and itchier than a vest woven of seaweed but at least Maroto always looked good in black, and the outfits had lent a certain verisimilitude to last night’s turn of bad monk, worse nun, a game of Captain Bang’s own devising. Knowing how much she liked setting him straight, he pointed toward shore and said, “Say, that must be the Winter Palace, huh? Nice turrets.”
“Yeah?” At last Bang looked up from the sorry sight below to scan Othean’s coast. “No, that’s the Autumn Palace—see the maples in the raised gardens?”
“I …” Maroto squinted inland, past the rocky shore and the band of forest to the epic castle complex that filled the horizon. He couldn’t even see the silhouettes of gardens from this distance, let alone identify their flora. “No, Cap’n, I don’t.”
“Me neither,” she said, “but we’re coming in from the west, dummy, so you don’t have to see any miserable maples to know it’s the Autumn Palace. Othean’s laid out in a big fat diamond, with a castle at each corner—city’s a lot bleeding bigger than she looks on your foreign maps, too, so we’re still a way out from the Winter Palace.”
“Well, not too far,” said Maroto, eyeing the shoreline. “Good tailwind like this …”
“And maybe we’ll be there by noon,” said Bang. “Idiot Chainites sailed us into the wrong bloody inlet before our Immaculate escort could stop them, and that tailwind of yours is going to be smacking us in the nose the whole way back out and around to Othean Bay.”
“In that case we’ve got some time to kill,” said Maroto, suggestively cocking a hip in her direction and wincing as the sandpaper-smooth robe scraped over his skin.
“Time never dies, it just gets old and annoying, like certain other things I could mention,” she said, retrieving her waterskin and the shipbiscuits that were appealingly mundane after the weeks of obscene edibles they had sampled in the Sunken Kingdom. On the other hand, while they hadn’t known what they were eating and drinking, and sometimes it had made sensual noises going down, the rations on Jex Toth had tasted better than bilge water and wormcastles. “You sure you got anything left after last night, tiger?”
“Let the contrite novice remind his confessor he wasn’t actually granted any dispensation last night,” said Maroto, trying to break off a piece of her shipbiscuit and nearly breaking a nail instead.
“I wasn’t talking about me, I was talking about your succubus,” said Bang. “You were doing it again last night.”
“Oh!” Now that she brought it up he remembered he had been dreaming of Choi again; sweet as they were when they came upon him, they were always the slipperiest to remember. He was long past any embarrassment with Bang or she with him, after the things they’d seen and done and shared to while away their captivity in Jex Toth, but it was curious she only reported his night-moans and grunts on mornings after his mind had drifted to the wildborn cutie. He’d never made much noise in his sleep before, he didn’t think, but maybe this was just another symptom of getting on in years, the brain getting funny. Then again, if vivid yet impossible-to-recall wet dreams were part of the ravages of age, he could do a lot worse. “Well, Cap’n, friendly sprites of the spray and the aether are one thing, but I know you call your crew your hearties, so your bosun will serve you better with a hearty meal of flesh and blood … among other fluids.”
“Bosun my butt,” said Bang, crumbs falling from her sunburned lips as she surveyed the sprawling capital of her homeland. “You’ll be lucky if you make cabin boy, and there’ll be no flesh or blood for you till I’ve supped on some myself. At least we’ll get something proper to eat when we put in at the Winter Palace. Assuming they grant us a last meal once t
hey recognize me for the fell pirate queen that I surely am.”
“This is wild,” said Maroto, turning slowly in place to survey their flock of galleons and carracks and the Immaculate turtleships that had escorted them all the way from the Haunted Sea. He was living through the end of days, all right, and only a pedant would point out that Maroto himself had helped usher them in. “Can’t believe we’re going to witness the first time in history a Crimson fleet sails into Othean Bay.”
“These sails are black as a war priest’s panties,” Bang pointed out. “The Empire’s not so red as she used to be.”
“All empires are going to be red in one hell of a hurry if we aren’t able to bring the Star together and mount a unified defense against Jex Toth,” he said, shivering despite the hot morning. He just hoped it warmed up enough to gel his half-baked plans of saving the world from the very enemy to whom he had so recently betrayed it. “I’m just relieved that once those cardinals heard about the Vex Assembly driving their pope mad and declaring war on the Star they decided to do the sensible thing and come straight down here to form an alliance.”
“If you honestly think the Holy See is ever going to do the sensible thing, you’re having another of your sweet dreams,” said Bang. “You think just because we told them the whole Star is in danger they’re going to suddenly stop being selfish, evil shitstains and join hands with all their heathen neighbors? You think villains can really change as simple as that?”
“I never said it was simple, but if I didn’t think people could change I would’ve given up on this world a long time ago,” said Maroto, though he felt a cold pulse of disgrace ripple through him as soon as the hypocrisy left his lips. For all his years of trying to be a better barbarian, as soon as the Tothans got in his grill he didn’t just revert to his shameless old self, he somehow managed to sink to the lowest depths of his bottom-feeder life. If he had changed at all over the many humiliating decades, it was for the worse …
Except that was all a bit melodramatic, wasn’t it? Sure, he’d made a mess of things with the Vex Assembly, no sugarcoating that, but how had he fallen into their clutches in the first place? By sacrificing himself so that Bang could escape from the flying Tothan patrol that had discovered them on the ridgeline. He hadn’t even thought about it, just hurled himself in harm’s way to protect his friend … same as he had when a massive egg-laying monster had attacked their camp. Same as he had when that horned wolf had come stalking his squad in the Kutumbans, and same as he had when those punkarse bodyguards had tried to double-cross the nobles’ caravan clear back in the Panteran Wastes. Same as he had over and over again of late, despite the fact that after years of not caring if he lived or died so long as he was high he’d finally found some real value in life.
Fool that he was, he’d long assumed that paradigm shift had come when he first heard the rumor that Zosia was still alive, but looking back on it there’d been another big change in his life right around that time: it was when he’d fallen in with Purna and Digs and the rest of his new friends. Purna especially. Late as she’d come into his song she’d sure changed the tune in one hell of a hurry! If he’d only been lucky enough to die one of those many times he’d put his life on the line to save her crazy arse then he would’ve gone out as the hero she believed him to be, instead of persisting long enough to land on Jex Toth and fail his final trial in epic fashion …
But he was still alive, whether he deserved to be or not, and that meant maybe, just maybe, his pathetic capitulation to the Vex Assembly hadn’t been his last chance to define himself. Maybe he could still become the person his friends thought he was, the person he so desperately wanted to be. Whenever he had an audience he didn’t do half-bad, after all, risking his arse left and right for his pals. It was only when he was left alone with his doubts—or a coven of horrifying immortal sorcerers—that the old devil of his baser nature tripped him up.
So now that he had shat the bed there was nothing for it but to try to clean up after himself, preferably before anyone else caught a whiff. Of course, back in Flintland such an accident would require burning your straw mat altogether and then weaving a new one, a point that made that particular turn of phrase even more ominous, but now was not the time to get bogged down in verbiage. Today must be a day of positive action, with not a word wasted.
“Maybe every cardinal on the Holy See is just as wicked as they ever were, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do the right thing, even if it’s just from self-interest,” said Maroto, trying to stay sunny in the face of Bang’s spiritual storm front. “Joining arms with the Immaculates and everyone else isn’t some noble sacrifice for the Chain to make, it’s the only chance they have for survival. They must understand that—why else would we be going down here instead of sailing back to Diadem? You made the point yourself that these Chainites look to have the whole Samothan navy even if they aren’t hoisting the Crimson, so why come here instead of home unless they were ready to work together?”
“If those hollowheads on the Holy See don’t want to go home it’s probably ’cause they didn’t leave any reinforcements in reserve and are looking for a safer harbor,” said Bang. “Or maybe that Immaculate blockade that met us on our way out of the Haunted Sea didn’t give them much choice but to come down for a visit. So stow all the we’re-all-in-this-together business, because I don’t think for a moment the Star’s going to join forces against Jex Toth. If anything it’ll be a race to see who can sell out the rest, a plan that certain forward-thinking persons have already employed, albeit to disappointing result.”
“Don’t remind me,” said Maroto, dying inside all over again at yet another reminder of just how swiftly he’d sold out the Star to save his own skin. The farther they sailed from Jex Toth the worse his guilt grew—next time he got the opportunity to play the martyr he wouldn’t make such a mess of it. One of his favorite lies. Angrily shaking his head, he said, “I’ve got this notion of myself, Bang, that I’m a good guy. Or all right, not good, exactly, but working toward it—that I may have done a lot of bad but going forward I’m going to do better. But every fucking time I blow it, don’t I? Every fucking time I do the worst thing possible. Which raises the question if I’m not just a selfish piece of shit at heart, just like everyone always said.”
“That’s not a question I’ve ever had to ask,” said Bang, slouching against the railing and speaking in her real voice, the one free of bravado. The one he barely ever heard her use, and never when he went looking for it. “About myself, maybe, but never about you—and that’s my whole point. You’re not so bad, Useful, and if you knew your only play was working with those Tothan demons, then I can’t see a fleet of nutty Imperials thinking any different. They might not be any better at it than you are, but they’ll try to betray the rest of the Star twice as fast.”
“See, you’re still thinking like a pirate when you should be thinking like a zealot.” Maroto scratched under his robe. “The key to any performance is to really get into the headspace, live in it, make it—”
“I prefer experiencing your entertainments to hearing about them,” said Bang, draining the last few drops of her waterskin … No, his waterskin, he saw the brown stain on it now. Which meant he’d be climbing down soon, since he’d sensibly slurped the dew-catchers before she’d risen. “If only the Tothans were a little more taken with your performance as archenemy of humanity, maybe they would have ensured this fleet was securely under our nefarious command before bidding us a fond farewell.”
“They bought it for a while, anyway,” said Maroto sadly, reflecting on his final, tragic role as the man who sold the Star. His loopy old friend Carla was right; hell was nothing more or less than struggling every day of your damn life to play a better part only to end up right back where you’d started. “You know why those monsters believed I was the mortal enemy of humanity? Because I am. Or at least that’s how I felt, back there in the tummy of the titan—method acting or just a depressive personality, you make the cal
l.”
“Well, see that this time around you don’t lose yourself in the part,” said Bang, planting the last of her shipbiscuit in the middle of the gull snare she’d rigged but had yet to catch anything with. “The end times already have enough Chainites to go around. In fact, I’ve got a different sort of character for you to play …”
“An even naughtier novice?” asked Maroto, perking up a little as a familiar lecherous smile enlivened her freckled face. “A beastly bishop?”
“A mutineer in monk’s clothing,” said Bang. “That Immaculate blockade would have nabbed us for sure if we’d broken away from the armada before, but now that we’re long past it we can start sowing some dissent. Even if everyone who’s working this ship was a true believer when they sailed from Diadem, they’ve got to be second-guessing things now that they’ve seen the shape of their so-called angels. Some are probably even looking for a new messiah, someone to show them the way to salvation.”
“Now who’s jumping to conclusions?” said Maroto, because according to the Holy See the return of Jex Toth was one of their main prophecies, and witnessing a manifest miracle had to solidify a Chainite’s faith rather than rattle it. Might take some work to incorporate all the gooey details, sure, but religious types spent their whole lives twisting facts around to suit their faith, so they were in good practice.
“When I say jump, you say?” said Bang.
“Pants on or off, Cap’n,” Maroto dutifully recited, but now he was smiling hungrily, too. When they had escaped Jex Toth he had felt compelled to try to play this one last adventure honest, to see if he could make up for his crimes by having a hand in unifying the Star against their alien enemies. But now that he’d had some time and perspective it was worth remembering that the Immaculates had never once helped the Cobalts in their campaigns to liberate the Crimson Empire, and the Burnished Chain was obviously the worst band of ball-sniffers around. Neither faction gave a hot squat about anyone else, so if getting them both on board for a united front didn’t work, a smart fellow could do worse than having a backup plan that involved a fast ship to take them as far from the Haunted Sea as possible.
A War in Crimson Embers Page 19