A War in Crimson Embers

by Alex Marshall

  “Ahhhhhh,” said Hoartrap sagely, as if he knew half as much as he thought he did, but to her relief he didn’t fight her on it. Turning back to the ruined pentagram he said, “Oh well, two are better than none, and I’d never begrudge a pal her sense of sentiment. Help me get this set back up and we can go give Maroto the shock of his life. Well, one of them, anyway, but I pride myself on being present for almost all of them.”

  Instead of immediately working with either the rat or the badger, Hoartrap stowed his devil-stuffed bag inside his pack and started futzing with the broken symbol on the floor. As he nudged the disturbed sand back into a solid line, Keun-ju shakily joined Purna and Prince, the Immaculate looking as blanched as Purna must. Best had taken a few steps toward the door but stopped in the middle of the empty floor, perhaps unwilling to pass under the floral horror.

  “They’re almost here,” called the Horned Wolf, sounding more herself again now that she could focus on something wholesome, like a furious mob coming to murder them. “Firelight replaces Silvereye, they must be climbing the path.”

  “Bring your things, bring your things,” said Hoartrap, hopping back to his feet and brushing bone dust off his hands. Tossing the last few odds and ends into his bulky wicker pack, he hoisted it onto his back and then took up the magic post under one arm. “Swiftly now, to the edge of the circle. This time we’re stepping inside, but not until I say so—the door’s already ajar from our first adventure and I don’t want anyone falling through until I’ve made sure it leads where it needs to.”

  “Have you already freed the devils?” asked Best, shouldering her own bag and cautiously approaching the altered symbol on the floor. Or perhaps it was the floor itself that had been changed, and the pentagram remained the same. It was hard to tell since looking at it made Purna’s eyes water. “Is it done?”

  “Nobody’s freeing anyone,” said Hoartrap. “I have the means to take us all through with little more than a wave of the hand and a slip of the tongue.”

  “But you said we needed to free our devils to take us wherever we wanted to go,” said Keun-ju. “That was the whole point of … of what you made us do.”

  “I didn’t make you do anything,” said Hoartrap, resuming his position at the edge of the symbol, the torch behind him throwing his grotesque shadow over everyone else. “And what I said was if you bound a devil you could then release it in exchange for safe passage through the First Dark, no Gate required. Which you could. I, however, do not need to waste good devils on such a simple trick, not with the ground so thin in front of us. So step right up, hold hands and—”

  “Then why summon them at all?” demanded Best.

  “To weaken the membrane between our world and theirs, thus facilitating our passage through this very spot,” said Hoartrap with growing annoyance. “When they pull themselves free there is … a residual malleability in reality, to put it in layperson’s terms, which we will exploit to our advantage.”

  “Exploit to your advantage, you mean,” said Purna, holding Prince even tighter as the pieces of Hoartrap’s plot slipped into joint like the proper mix of components coming together to release a devil from the First Dark. “They didn’t have to give you their devils at all, did they? Even if they’d kept them you could still take us through this weak spot or whatever, isn’t that what you’re saying?”

  “Ah, you Ugrakari and your eerie intuition,” said Hoartrap. “You would make a finer apprentice than your girlfriend ever did … not that that is an invitation, mind you, I’ve come to the conclusion that taking on pupils is more trouble than it’s worth. You give and you give and—”

  “You tricked us,” said Best, “to make us complicit in your crimes.”

  “I did not volunteer every little detail that would have flown in one ear and out the other,” said Hoartrap. “I told you for a price I would take you where you need to go. I named my price. You have paid it. No tricks. No crimes.”

  “You are an ogre and a mage, and yet as Best points out you hide behind your wizard-lies instead of speaking boldly and nobly,” said Keun-ju, getting fired up, too. “Why have us summon devils only to pass them over to you, if it was not required?”

  “Because the little shits are getting wise to me,” said Hoartrap, and now his bluster was replaced with something gloomier as he scowled down at the broken bits of skull, spatters of grey wax, and melted metal in the center of the pentagram. “Eat enough devils and word gets out, I suppose, and it’s getting harder and harder to draw them in … if they know it’s me. It’s a difficult business, practicing diabolical witchcraft without the assistance of the diabolic, but this workaround seemed to do the trick, so who knows, there’s hope yet. After we find Maroto we ought to go another round, I’ll certainly make it worth your while to help me refill my larder if—”

  Prince barked, crossbows twanged, and half a dozen bolts banked around Purna … and then resumed course. They should have struck Hoartrap, but passing over the pentagram they became caught in the same syrupy slowness that had caused the bronze pyramid to hover during the first ritual. As the shafts swayed slowly through the air Hoartrap waved his free hand in front of his face, covering his mouth as he whispered something that made Purna’s ears ache and hair stand on end. The bolts stopped moving altogether, then plummeted to the floor … and kept falling, when there was no floor to catch them.

  “Our cue!” said Hoartrap, grabbing Best’s elbow and hopping over the border of the pentagram, the magic post still tucked under his other arm. As Best fell into the pit Purna grabbed the horn of the woman’s helm with her free hand, Prince yapping his head off now that the Eyvindians were charging into the church behind them. And as Purna was yanked down into the First Dark after them, she felt Keun-ju grab her with his free arm … which was to say his only one, though maybe if Hoartrap hadn’t fleeced him of his devil he might have wished his way into having two again. This was the last thought she had before crashing into the slippery warm scratching heaving river—

  Cliff. The top of a cliff, the wind buffeting her, and she would have fallen if Best hadn’t continued to lurch forward, Purna dangling from her helm. Then Keun-ju was there, and his added weight pulled all three of them to the ground. But not off it, thankfully, the sheer drop Purna had glimpsed now a few yards away thanks to Best’s powerful stride. Nobody tried to stand right away, the rocky earth swimming in front of Purna, but then Hoartrap’s oily toes appeared in front of her, catching in the gleam of the setting sun.

  “Need to work on my landings,” he muttered, “but this is the spot all right. Time to see just how far the Mighty Maroto has roamed—who wants to be a dear and take the other end of this hexed piece of driftwood?”

  Perhaps it was Prince licking her face with her old tongue that helped Purna get over her bends from the First Dark sooner than the others, but whatever the cause she had climbed to her feet and dusted herself off before Best and Keun-ju were even able to sit up. It was hardly the most remarkable aspect of the evening but Purna couldn’t get over how dark the night had been back in Black Moth, but here the sun still slouched on the far horizon. It had felt like the magic of a moment, but had a whole day passed while they floated through the First Dark?

  Really taking in her surroundings now, she saw a shimmering jungle poised to break over them like a green tidal wave, and on the other side of their narrow shelf of rock the cliffs plummeted to an ocean as vast and open as any sea she had ever glimpsed. It would have taken her breath away even if she hadn’t known that she now stood on Jex Toth, the Sunken bally Kingdom from whence all Ugrakari traced their ancestry, but where none had set foot for five hundred years.

  “Sightsee later, Purna, for now take the other end of this so we can determine which direction to go,” said Hoartrap, bumping her hip with the magic post. “From my brief expeditions to this place in pursuit of my fellow Villain I quickly learned to stay under the cover of the canopy, especially after dark, and the sun’s almost sunk. The heavens are not so ple
asant as they seem, nor so vacant, for there are … there are …”

  “There are what?” asked Keun-ju, but Hoartrap was as incapable of speech as Purna. She had obligingly hooked an arm around the tamarind log while still taking in the majestic vista, but as soon as she took up her end the unmistakable pull of the post captured her attention. Instead of being tugged back from the cliffs and toward the jungle interior, the wooden compass needle tried to wiggle forward in the crook of her elbow, pressing straight out toward the open sea. Oblivious to this ominous portent, Keun-ju woozily got to his feet and asked again, “There are what in the skies, Hoartrap?”

  “Demons,” whispered Best, her eyes wide and bright as the setting sun as she stared upward.

  “Is it maybe mixed up?” asked Purna, giving the magic post a shake, as if that might sort it out. “From coming through the First Dark? Something?”

  “Fuck!” Hoartrap dropped his end of the post as something popped inside his robes, smoke rising from his chest as he rooted around in the fold and then flung away a fat, glowing cockroach. Prince went right after it, but the bug was too quick for him, wiggling into a crevasse. Sucking his fingers, Hoartrap repeated himself a few more times, as if maybe they hadn’t caught it. “Fuck fuck fuck!”

  “Fuck!” yelped Purna, dropping her end of the magic post, too, as the shadow that passed overhead caught her notice. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the tamarind log roll away, right off the side of the fucking cliff, but that was hardly her biggest concern at present.

  “Fuck is right!” said Hoartrap.

  “What … the … fuck …” gasped Keun-ju.

  “A long story with a dud ending,” said Hoartrap, scowling out to sea. “Alarmlings only hatch under extremely specific circumstances. In this case, when a sword I warded for a friend comes into close proximity with a higher concentration of deviltry than has existed in this world for centuries. That friend is on Othean, and the only possible trigger would be an invasion from this very shore crashing down on—oh you meant what the fuck is that!”

  They did, but not even Best was sticking around for an answer, everyone scattering away into the jungle like rabbits from the shadow of a hawk. Everyone except Hoartrap, anyway, who initially tried to play it cool, but over her shoulder Purna saw him hike the skirt of his robes and dash for the treeline as the colossal white thing dove down out of the blood-colored sky. He almost made it, too, but then ropey tongues exploded out from the swooping monster, enveloping its quarry, and the Touch was carried off so swiftly and silently you would have thought he had never set foot on the Sunken Kingdom at all … if not for the three shivering mortals hiding under the cover of strange, mammoth vegetation, with one small devil among them.

  Before long it was fully dark.

  CHAPTER

  3

  So, does it feel good to be the Mighty Maroto again, instead of just plain old Useful?” asked Dong-won as they strode down the gangplank to the statue-skirted jetties of Darnielle Bay, harbor city of Azgaroth. “Or let me guess, this ain’t quite how you remembered it, either?”

  “No, this is about how it usually went, actually,” said Maroto, trying not to trip over his manacles and go into the drink. “Gonna level with you, I got clapped in irons all the damn time.”

  “Just not when you were trying to help people for a change?” said Niki-hyun from the front of the chain gang. Unlike certain pirates Maroto could name, Niki-hyun had taken their further decline in fortunes in good stride. Maybe it was just to rub her former captain’s nose in her poor choice in cabin help, or maybe she was just pleased as rhum punch to die anywhere but on Jex Toth; didn’t much matter so long as she kept taking Maroto’s side.

  “I can see why you’d guess that, given some of the songs they used to sing about us old Villains,” said Maroto, his legs going wobbly as they reached the steady stone of the quay. “But the thing is I was always trying to help people, just so happened more often than not I was one of them what stood to benefit. Now that you mention it, though, those times I stretched out on behalf of those less fortunate than myself were the ones I was most likely to scald my fingers—you’d think I’d learn my lesson one of these years.”

  “Yes, you fucking would,” grumbled Bang from her position right behind him. Her tone was still as black as the incense-rubbed armor of their guards, and the countless Chainite robes flooding the docks all around them … robes they had all been stripped of following Maroto’s revealing himself to the Holy See back at Othean Bay. He had genuinely believed that once the Black Pope’s de facto heirs heard his song they would want him to come along and meet the Empress of the Immaculate Isles, to have the famous Villain’s inside scoop on Jex Toth as they engineered an alliance against the greater threat. Instead the Immaculates hadn’t let any of the Imperials come ashore, the three pirates were rounded up and treated to the same shabby treatment as Maroto, and the whole fleet sailed south. “What a shitty place to die.”

  “Worse towns to be martyred than Darnielle Bay,” Maroto opined as they were herded toward the high, spiked walls of the harbor. “You think being impaled up there is bad, but that’s only because you’ve never seen what they do to rogues in Lemi or Cockspar. Azgaroth … Azgaroth has not been high on my list of potential retirement spots.”

  “Always heard the one thing this primitive province did right was they didn’t let the Chain in,” said Dong-won, talking good and loud so all their black-robed handlers could hear. “Everyone knows the Azgarothians would rather break off from the Empire than bow to a pope.”

  “Even dogs may understand the word of the divine, if it is delivered with authority,” said the black-robed cardinal with the bright red hat and matching facepaint who seemed to be the gilded mouthpiece of his fellow clerics on the Holy See. “Yet many hounds shall hear an order and still disobey, until they are brought to heel. What a blessing it is for such simple beasts, to be given the gift of discipline.”

  That this Cardinal Triangle or whatever his name was had transferred Maroto and his cohort to the lead galleon had been worrisome, but not nearly so much as the fact that he now literally led them by a golden chain as they marched along the quays toward the harbor walls. There was a wide promenade that ran along the bay, but while an army could drop anchor and march up it toward town, wasn’t nobody walking inside unless those ancient gates opened to admit them.

  “Wonder how far you’d have to hike down the strand to see the edge of the Immaculate wall,” said Niki-hyun.

  “A lot farther than you’re going,” said one of the platemailed handlers who held on to the chain between the lead prisoner and the cardinal.

  “If it stretches from the end of this inlet clear to the Bitter Gulf it must be the biggest miracle since the Age of Wonders,” said Dong-won. “The real miracle being how this close to the construction you Imperials didn’t notice our people sticking up a giant wall between you and Linkensterne.”

  “Probably some graft, and definitely some willful ignorance,” said Bang, finally getting into the spirit of winding up their captors. “Cockspar and Lemi always took a hard line against Immaculate expansion, but Melechesh is right across the water there, so Darnielle’s always had what you’d call a more progressive view of us neighbors to the north. Wouldn’t be surprised if all the delays merchants are having getting into Linkensterne these days are some sort of a kickback to funnel traffic over here instead, where they’ve got daily barges ferrying folk back and forth between Darnielle Bay and Melechesh. No wait, either!”

  “The days of such petty sins have passed. All will answer for their actions, and receive exactly what it is they have asked for,” said the cardinal. Pointing toward the thickening thorns atop the harbor fortifications, he looked back at them with one of those creepy smiles you only ever saw on the faces of fundamentalist loons. “Why, when you are placed atop this wall you may well have your prayers granted, and gaze upon the fence that your infidel countryfolk constructed to cheat the Burnished Chain of its
tithe.”

  “If you think a single money-worshipping merchant-prince of Linkensterne ever tithed anything more substantial than a dry fart to the Chain you’re even stupider than the Miserable Maroto,” called Bang, which led to her catching a fox-o’-nine-tails to her already raw back. Their guards must think her pretty foolish to keep needling people who carried torture implements the way most people kept pocketknives, but Maroto knew better. After all the things they’d gotten up to in Jex Toth and later, on the boat, he was convinced the captain was a bigger switch than the hickory one she liked to use on him.

  “Look, Cardinal, you say we’re way past petty sins and on to the big stakes, I’m right there with you,” said Maroto, because while he’d thought he’d become resigned to his fate on the trip down here, now that he could actually see the human-shaped shadows spitted on those spikes he figured it really couldn’t hurt to try and whittle this nut down. “So with Jex Toth risen and wroth, what good comes out of holding on to old grudges? Sure, I was with the Cobalts and you’re with the Burnished Chain, but that was before the Vex Assembly declared war on the Star! We’re all in this together, aren’t we, mortals against monsters?”

  “From the mouths of anathemas spill the gospel of the saints,” said the cardinal as they reached the promenade and the sea of black they bobbed through parted to let them stand in the clearing that had formed in front of the harbor gates. “Old grudges shall indeed be put aside, and you, oh wretched architect of the apocalypse, shall assist in this healing of rifts.”

  “Architect of the … apocalypse?” asked Maroto, a little hurt. This cardinal had hit the nail on the noggin, all right.