A War in Crimson Embers

by Alex Marshall

  “What if these monkey men are the dread demons of Jex Toth?” said Purna, using a leaf to pick excrement out of her devil dog’s fur after their second run-in with the vulgar creatures. “Wouldn’t it be a hoot if all those dire prophecies were just warning of the return of some punkass apes?”

  “No,” said Best, refusing to believe that the Fallen Mother would be so cruel. There must be something far more dangerous to this place. Best prayed nightly for a worthy foe.

  Reckoning if the alleged armies of Jex Toth were attacking the Star they would need ships to reach it, the hunting party hewed as close to the coast as the difficult terrain allowed. They bore east, deciding on the direction after Purna asked her devil in which direction the enemy lay and he cocked his head to the left. That settled the matter for Purna, but since setting out Best had noticed the dog always cocked his head when his mistress addressed him, and always to that side. This was what came of dealing with devils—instead of granting you wisdom they sapped you of it, making you certain when you should be cautious.

  Day and night the cacophony of the jungle set Best’s teeth on edge. Even when their path led them down from the high country to gravelly black beaches they stayed in the trees as much as possible, for while the sky-devils patrolled more frequently after dark they were increasingly active during the day. One night as they all tried to sleep in makeshift hammocks of tangled vines, Best counted a dozen of them flying in formation through a chink in the canopy. She wondered how many more might be in the flock that went by unseen. The larger ones were even bigger than Nemi’s horned wolf Myrkur, and in the absence of more immediate challenges Best committed herself to bringing one of them down, though what trophy their gelatinous-looking flesh might yield remained to be seen.

  “That is absolutely not a good idea,” Keun-ju told her when she announced her intention as they made camp the next evening on a small wooded island in the midst of a wide, shallow river that flowed out to the sea. “Dangerous, profitless sport. I vote no.”

  “I do not propose it for a vote,” said Best, the word as sour as the yellow fruit they had foraged after Keun-ju excitedly declared them to be a varietal of Immaculate plum. “I offer you the opportunity to join my hunt, and you speak of votes?”

  “We already have one hunt, and if you are hurt or killed then Purna and I will be in serious trouble on our own,” said the Immaculate, as though confessing their weakness might somehow sway Best from pursuing personal glory. “I believe it is an issue that concerns us all, and so I put it to a vote.”

  “He’s got a point,” said Purna, draining the blood from her most recent snake—it was obvious from her grotesque tongue that the girl had the blood of devils in her, same as Sullen, so perhaps she was part mongoose. “A vote to decide whether we three postpone this thankless, blistery hike for something crazy-fun like monster hunting.”

  “As I said, any issue that concerns us all …” Keun-ju began, but trailed off and blew his veil out in a long sigh as Purna grinned at Best. Her devil dog barked, hopping up on his little legs to happily lick the girl’s cheek. It took Best a moment to realize what had happened, and then she smiled, too. The little Ugrakari might be boastful but she was no coward, and had the hood to prove it—if the cloak had actually been cured properly it should have been as great a prize as any in the clan, but the work had been hastily done, and crudely. Still, she had taken it with her own hand, to hear Sullen sing it when she had asked how he dared associate with an Outlander who wore the mantle of their people. And now she voted with Best to seek other prey of great stature.

  “How do you think we take it down?” asked Purna, pushing her face-licking devil away far more gently than Best would have been able to manage. “I mean, I’ve got an idea or two of my own, but one badass monster killer to another, what’s your gut telling you here?”

  “I have considered this all day,” said Best. “It is wise to hunt birds in their nests, but I have yet to see one land. Perhaps if we capture one of the Craven-apes and stake it out in the open we may lure one to the ground, and then strike.”

  “Too complicated, and we haven’t seen any of those chimp chumps in yonks,” said Purna as she began skinning the snake. “But the principle’s sound. I vote we have Keun-ju do it—wait until dark, but instead of dousing the fire have him stand out there in the stream with a torch to bring one in.”

  “I do not think so,” he said, adding more kindling to the small fire that smoldered in the bole of a mangrove.

  “I vote it as well,” said Best, warming up to this democratic process after all.

  “What do we hit it with, though?” said Purna. “Guess we could stick it with those bamboo spears we made, but to really get the impact we’d want it to fly right into … oh, that’s it! Keun-ju, you’re fired as bait, I get to do it.”

  “We won’t need spears,” said Best, patting her great-grandmother’s sun-knife. “This fetish of my family never misses, and always kills.”

  Keun-ju cleared his throat, and it sounded an awful lot like one of those dirty two-syllable Immaculate curse words her son had picked up in his travels, and now she could guess from where. At least Purna swore in Flintlander like a civilized person. Best was about to ask the lippy boy what exactly he meant, but then her eyes caught the hollow sleeve of his coat he had tied off to prevent bugs from crawling in and she realized he was right. Best’s chest tightened. She could no longer make that boast of her sun-knife, a claim that had been true all the days she had used it, and all the days of her father before her. As if he knew he had won some victory over her, Keun-ju said, “I am merely suggesting you might not want to throw Sullen’s inheritance into a winged whale, lest it carry it away.”

  “His inheritance?” said Best, appalled at the suggestion. “My son will never wield this blade.”

  “Not so long as you’re alive, I suppose,” said Keun-ju, and Best squinted at him, trying to see if he had just threatened her or not. It was hard to tell, when he hid his mouth like a reformed anathema wearing a penitent mask.

  “See, here’s what I’m going to do,” said Purna, skewering her snake and tossing its arrow-shaped head to her devil. “I find a nice rocky spot in the river, and take a nice long spear out there. Then I clear a little hole in the streambed, where I can brace the butt of the bamboo. Keep it lowered, inconspicuous like, until the last minute—when it zips down to nab me, I duck real low and pull up the spear. Splat.”

  “That is indeed the likely result,” said Keun-ju. “Even if you succeed in killing it in such a fashion, Purna, it will crash on top of you from such heights as I cannot begin to guess. Splat.”

  “Oh,” said Purna. “You think so?”

  “A hole,” said Best, inspired by the snake Purna began smoking over the fire. “Instead of the center of the river we go to the far shore. The bank is sandy there. We dig a hole, just wide enough for you, and you wait with your spear. As it swoops you lie back in the hole. It will spit itself, and even if it strikes the earth atop you, you are safe beneath the surface.”

  “Hey, not bad!” said Purna, turning her snake. “How deep a hole are we talking now?”

  They plotted as the sun went down, Best feeling almost herself again, the skilled huntress she had been before the Fallen Mother had seen fit to test her. Even Keun-ju’s incessant mentioning of Sullen-this and Sullen-that no longer seemed intended to provoke her, for Purna sympathetically rolled her eyes at Best whenever the Immaculate made another such comment. It was not the epic song Sullen had promised her, but it was a better evening than most, and an illuminating one: when she asked Purna who had taught her to hunt such noble prey as horned wolves, the girl replied it had indeed been Best’s feckless brother Craven. Sullen had told her as much, but as a rule Best distrusted second-hand hunting tales. Purna had been there, however, and watched Craven charge headlong into one of the monsters as they traveled through the mountains, and together their small pack had overwhelmed the beast, and then a second of its kind. Even t
he Diggelby creature had taken part in the glorious battle, which surprised Best almost as much as the thought of her brother running at anything, let alone a horned wolf … but one hunt does not a huntress make.

  Later, after they excavated a burrow for Purna and brought her spear and torch, Best and Keun-ju retreated, along with the girl’s devil dog—he had tried to stay in the depression with her but she had ordered him off and the miniature monster followed her instructions for a change. They had chosen the position of the hole carefully, and Best climbed a nearby eucalyptus, edging far enough out on a low limb that if the sky-devil landed atop Purna but was not killed outright she could leap onto its back. Keun-ju stayed in the shadows of the treeline, ready to rush in with a spear of his own.

  Then they waited.

  But they did not have to wait long.

  Purna was singing a drinking song at the top of her lungs, waving the torch around, and then the monster was falling from the sky so swiftly Best had barely sounded the alarm when it struck. She couldn’t see if Purna had dropped back in time, its great silvery bulk swooping back up into the air … and then crashing down again, skidding across the riverbank and into the current. The devil dog streaked out of the trees, running toward the fallen behemoth and yapping its head off as though they might have failed to notice where it landed.

  Best dropped from the tree as Purna poked her head up with an exultant woo, the girl shaking all over as she crawled out of the pit. She was spattered with blood, or something like blood, it was hard to tell since the torch had gone out, but to Best’s eye even in the moonlight it looked off, not dark enough.

  Then they were rushing in together to confirm just how different this game truly was, wading into the water and spearing it over and over, though it was already still save for the death shivers that even strange demons in unknown lands apparently experienced. It was huge, its leathery opal skin translucent in places, showing organs that shimmered with phosphorescence, tentacles as thick as a mastodon trunk emerging from under one of its broken wings, swaying in the current. Strangest of all, perhaps, was a black panel on its ridged back, which almost looked like … like one of those things Outlanders used, for riding horses.

  “A saddle!” said Purna, climbing up onto the seat and looking all around. “Holy fucking shit. Holy shitting fuck. Who do you think rides these guys?”

  “I can tell you exactly who,” said Keun-ju, splashing up to them from the bank. “They were thrown when it fell. And one of them is still very much alive.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  They found Choplicker in the Office of Answers, laid out on a gurney like a sacrifice on a pagan altar. It had taken them some time to navigate all the way up here from the dungeons, but at least the disguise Boris had given Zosia was cutting the mustard. That, and Castle Diadem wasn’t quite the tightly guarded fortress it had been in Zosia’s day, or her successor’s—the few times they did encounter actual uniformed guards who asked where they were off to, Boris blathered right past them. The pair who minded the entrance to the Office of Answers hadn’t even done more than glance at his papers, and the interior of the complex was deserted this late at night. Boris used his coalstick to light a pair of interrogation lamps, hanging one up to illuminate Zosia’s devil as he took the other to check the adjoining torture chambers and make sure they were really alone.

  “Chop,” she murmured, standing over his stiff, lean form. The dog was as she’d left him in the Upper Chainhouse, when she’d turned from her fallen devil and charged the fuckers who had betrayed them. Must be his devilish blood that kept him so perfectly preserved, and running a hand through his bristly fur and feeling the coldness there her chest locked up, just as it had when Efrain Hjortt had tossed Leib’s head in her lap. When she could trust herself to speak again she said, “They got you about as good as they got me, huh?”

  “All clear,” said Boris, splashing through the rusty puddle that had formed over a clogged drain in the volcanic glass floor; for all his talk of the new way being better than the old, this room cluttered with witch thrones, iron maidens, and lesser-known implements had seen recent use. He had found a large gunnysack and tossed it onto the rusted table beside Choplicker, reluctant to approach the devil even in death. “Don’t mean to be indelicate, but stuff him in there and let’s get a move on. Those guards I drugged will be stirring, if they haven’t already, and once the alarm sounds getting you out of here won’t be so easy.”

  Zosia nodded, so tired from hiking all the way up here that she didn’t even know how she could carry him back out. Just thinking straight was near impossible, everything seeming like a lucid bug dream … but she would get through this. She would. She had to heal before she could figure out her next move, and she had to escape before she could heal.

  “Your oath,” Boris reminded her as she opened the sack to shove in his remains.

  “My oath?” Zosia looked up.

  “Just like we agreed in the cell,” said Boris. “Before we go, swear it on your devil. You’ll leave Diadem tonight and never return, nor seek vengeance nor violence on anyone here, nor cause mischief as you leave.”

  “Oh, right, sure,” said Zosia, drowsily weaving her fingers through Choplicker’s cold coat. “I swear to leave Diadem, not return, no vengeance, no violence, no mischief.”

  “No, say it like I said it,” insisted Boris. “Like a real oath, so I know I can trust you. On pain of your devil’s freedom, you’ll leave Diadem tonight and never return, nor seek vengeance nor violence on anyone here, nor cause mischief as you leave.”

  “This is getting fucking ridiculous,” said Zosia, her head aching and her fingers tightening to a fist in his fur. “You want me to swear on the freedom of my dead fucking devil? Fine, whatever. On pain of Choplicker’s freedom, I’ll … I’ll …”

  Boris started to mouth the words he thought she’d forgotten, but that was not the problem. No, it fucking was not. Relaxing her fist, she looked down at her devil, really looked at him. She let her hands roam where they would, not sure what she was seeking out, but her hackles good and raised as she leaned close, inspecting his body. It felt like there was a ravenous monster stalking through her brain fog, circling her, and if she couldn’t make it out in time it would end her.

  “Zosia, we have to go,” said Boris, talking down to her like she was a difficult child. “Now. Didn’t it seem a little too easy to get in here? Those guards at the door are probably checking out my story right fucking now, and when they find out it was bullshit they’ll come in here and nab us both. So do as you promised and swear the oath, or I’ll leave you here to be recaptured.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” said Zosia, her heart quickening as she straightened up, tore off the itchy fake beard, and caught him in her furious gaze. She had no clue what was going on, not yet, but she was sure of one thing. “You’ve been lying to me, Boris.”

  “You’re on your own,” said Boris, backing away to the door, but Zosia snatched a long knife off a nearby tray, held it up by the blade.

  “Come here, tell the truth, live. That order.” Zosia cocked her arm back, holding in a gasp as the bolt wound in her shoulder split open from the sudden movement. Keeping the knife held up for more than another few moments would take all she had; throwing it would be impossible. Grimacing though her pain, she said, “Take another step, or tell another lie, and this knife goes into you.”

  He froze, considering it, and if she’d actually been able to make good on her promise she would have thrown it into his fucking leg for not immediately capitulating. As if he read this bloody intention in her eyes his shoulders slumped and he hung his head, coming back between the vacant gurneys and chairs. She dropped the knife on the table next to the sack, noticing that it already had dog fur stuck to its tacky blade. Nothing made any sense yet, but she felt a stirring at the back of her mind, like a great bulk of scaled coils twisting over one another, loosening a living knot.

  “I told you true,” Boris sa
id, still sounding like he thought he could talk himself clear of whatever evil fucking mess this was. “Everything I said about there being too much killing and vengeance already, and you not deserving what the People’s Pack did to you, I believe that to my bones. I swear it on Sister Portolés’s soul. I want you to go free. I’m trying to help you, Zosia, and keep you from hurting other people who might yet do some good in this world!”

  “Those two things don’t always go together, Boris, but I played nice this time, didn’t I?” said Zosia. “Gave you my word to go away and never come back? Why the lawyer routine, having me say all the proper words in the proper order, and doing so in the name of the freedom of a devil that’s already dead?”

  “Those were the conditions,” said Boris, slumping down into an iron chair with straps instead of cushions. “I couldn’t have got you out on my own, Zosia, much as I’d like. I had help. But the terms were I had to get you to swear on your devil, just to make sure this didn’t come back to bite nobody. I staked my life that you’d agree to it, so my neck is as good as—”

  “Who helped you, Boris, and more importantly, why?” Always the whys were what eluded Zosia … “Why would anyone help me, when it’d be safest for all parties just to have me killed? And why did they tell you to take me here and have me swear on Choplicker?”

  “Look, tell you what …” said Boris, fiddling with one of the restraints on the arm of his chair. He reminded her of a worm that’d already been threaded onto the hook three times over but still couldn’t help itself from trying to wriggle free. “I’ll tell you everything, Zosia, but only after you swear the oath. That way everyone wins, nobody gets hurt, and you get all your questions answered.”