“I babysat them the whole way from the bay and there’s five hundred,” said Maroto, annoyed everyone had something smart to say about the size of his regiment. “Well, I’ll allow there’s probably fewer of them now than when we started, but you’ve got to expect a certain amount of shrinkage. Especially in weather like this.”
“Five hundred,” repeated Fennec, smiling a wry little smile that Maroto knew well, even if it didn’t bode that way. “Well, what’s a war without a complete intelligence failure. I never would have risked opening up the secret gates for five hundred head, and Chainites at that!”
“Reformed Chainites,” corrected Maroto. “People can change, Fennec. I hope.”
“Yes, well, even if it had been five thousand it wouldn’t have been enough,” said Fennec with a shrug. “Where are my manners, can I offer you a bowl of something?”
“A bowl of everything sounds better,” said Maroto, his mouth watering as he followed Fennec to the command table. Lamps shone on moist maps and cluttered figurines, the Usban passing the Flintlander his tubq box and then piling a jade bowl with rice porridge as Maroto packed Bang’s pipe with the blend of snow burly and sweet, lightly toasted black leaves. “You really think it’s that bad, huh.”
“I know it’s worse than bad,” said Fennec, pouring them both tea as Maroto began wolfing down the cold, salty porridge. “Enjoy, because that’s liable to be your last meal. When they first started chipping away at the outer wall we thought we had a chance, slow as the siege built, but now I’m thinking that was all for effect—give us plenty of time to see their army getting bigger and bigger and bigger, our morale getting lower and lower and lower. They were just camped out there for well over a fortnight, but once they went after the outer wall in earnest they broke through in less than three days. Now they’ve been working this one for a week. As soon as they launch their next real attack we’re done for—this wall’s not even standing in a couple of spots, just propped up with sticks. Sticks!”
“So why the switch?” asked Maroto, taking another big bite. Fennec looked confused, and Maroto swirled tea around his mouth to loosen up the pasty porridge, then gulped it down. It was one of those painful swallows that are so damn annoying. “If the odds are so long, why come over to working for the empress? What happened with the Cobalts after I left?”
“Ah,” said Fennec, and clearly couldn’t say any more for a minute, which made Maroto’s heart break all over again. His worst fears for his friends must have come true. He ate faster, trying to stop up the pain in his chest with the glutinous slop. When Fennec spoke again it was a sharper, darker tone than any Maroto remembered from all their many years together. “We came here to help, but were betrayed. The Empress Ryuki trapped us, and … Kang-ho is dead. She murdered him. She murdered his whole family.”
“Shit,” said Maroto, tossing his bowl down to clatter on the table. He hadn’t seen Kang-ho in years, and bitterly, bitterly regretted it—why hadn’t he ever visited him on the Isles? Or, um, had he? Back when he got way too deep into sea scorpions he had some vague memory … but no, damn it, the point was he should have kept in real touch with his friends. Maroto had always assumed of all the Villains he would be the first to kick it, and careful Kang-ho would be the last to shuffle off. “I’m … I’m sorry, Fennec. I know you guys … well … I’m sure there’s something in the Trve sutras we could sing for him over this offering I’m about to burn, but you’d have to take the lead on that.”
Immaculate horns began sounding up and down the wall, and Fennec sighed. “Save the funerary songs for us, old wolf, and smoke fast—that’s the signal. Our only hope was to hold the Autumn Palace, and it’s falling. This is the end. Of the Cobalt Company, and then Othean, and then the Star.”
“There’s got to be something we can do!” said Maroto, nearly shouting for the words to escape the tightness in his throat. Sorrow for Kang-ho had him on the verge, but there was also the need to hear from Fennec’s own lips what had happened to the rest of his friends. “Quick, man, tell me what happened after I left—you came here, Ji-hyeon and Kang-ho were killed, but what else, before and after? What happened to—”
He tried to say Purna’s name but lightning blasted a rod on a nearby tower and the thunder crack deafened him, and even as it rolled away the rain was beating down so hard on the roof it was hard for Maroto to make out what Fennec was saying.
“—kept the whole company captive, but when the siege started she knew they were in trouble and offered us our freedom if we saved the Autumn Palace. The empress’s representative spoke very eloquently of how all mortals are family, and while we sometimes have our differences we must put them aside to work together against the First Dark.” Fennec smirked. “As soon as I took command I encouraged our soldiers to loot the castle, and sent terms to the Tothans in every language I knew, offering to unlock Othean in exchange for safe passage for the Cobalt Company. No response, alas, alas, but in the hour or two we’ve got left keep an eye on your Chainites, is my advice—someone who will work for you in exchange for their freedom will sooner work against you for it, if given the chance.”
“My people,” said Maroto, the unlit pipe he had packed shaking in his hands as Fennec stood up, outlined by another flash. Waiting until the peal of thunder had faded before repeating himself, Maroto clambered to his weary feet as well. Seemed almost a shame to hear it now, with his own doom coming in hard and fast—why not let them live in his heart until it stopped beating? Why punish himself with knowing? Because it was what he deserved, that was why. “My people, Fennec, do they live? Purna and Choi, Diggelby and Din and Hassan? My nephew and father, what of them?”
“Ah … some might still be alive?” said Fennec, which was hardly the answer Maroto wanted to hear but wasn’t as bad as it could be, all things considered.
“Where might I find ’em, if they are?” said Maroto. “What part of the wall are they stationed at, or are they—”
“None of them are here, Maroto—maybe some are safe, wherever they are,” said Fennec softly, putting a furry hand on Maroto’s shoulder in a gesture that definitely didn’t fucking bode well. “But I know your father … your father fell back at the First Battle of the Lark’s Tongue.”
“Oh.” That was … that was not what Maroto had wanted to hear. That godsdamned son of a horned wolf had died? He’d been dead all this time, ever since Maroto had been marooned on Jex Toth? Before the teeth of his grief could seize hold of his tongue he said, “But the rest, you’re saying they just didn’t come up here with you and the Cobalts? They might be okay?”
“Only Choi …” Fennec began, but now his lip was wobbling the way Maroto’s ought to, if he’d been a decent son.
“Only Choi what?” Maroto asked forlornly when Fennec closed his eyes instead of going on. “Only Choi what, Fennec?”
“Only Choi traveled here with us,” said Fennec, opening his wet eyes to meet Maroto’s. “She saved my life, when they executed Kang-ho. I was going to do something stupid, but she stopped me. When I woke up it was in a prison yard with the rest of the Cobalts, and … I never saw her again.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything for sure!” said Maroto, finally feeling the joy of Bang’s philosophy as he parroted the words. “We can’t give up on our friends until we know for sure they—”
“The Empress Ryuki executed her, Maroto, weeks ago,” said Fennec. “Choi and old Colonel Hjortt both. I don’t know about the rest of your friends, but I know she’s dead.”
Maroto opened his mouth … then closed it again. Nothing to say. His fists tightened up along with his chest, but the rest of him felt so limp he could barely stand. As if sensing this his old friend put his arms around him, holding him up, but beyond this meager warmth the world stretched out cold and vast and teeming with horrors.
Not that he had to gaze out at the charging armies of Jex Toth to be reminded of that. He looked down at his feet, and staring up at him out of a lamplit puddle on the flagstones was a
grinning skull …
It rippled. The skull frowned, and then it wasn’t just the puddle that was rippling but the terrace itself. The Tothans had broken through, and the inner wall was falling. Maroto fell with it.
CHAPTER
17
Zosia had been obliged to mess a few people up getting out of the castle, but she didn’t push things further than she needed to. If she got to Gate Square and found Indsorith dead, though, she would teach this town the meaning of the word overkill. She jogged through the hooded mob, weaving around their crackling rushlights and following the river of sparks that flowed through the city. She didn’t stop to ask anyone if the execution had already taken place—hearing she was too late would only slow her down, but it damn sure wouldn’t alter her course. The treacherous representatives of the People’s Pack were going to answer for what they had done to the two queens who had tried to help them.
She and her devil reached the wide plain of Gate Square, one of the few neighborhoods in Diadem open enough that you could see the sky from the street. The darkness was lifting, the heavy grey clouds tinged purple. Ahead, Zosia saw the stream of hooded citizens disappearing into the Gate, and she was so surprised she slipped in the mud and skidded to a stop. What the fuck?
Except no, they weren’t actually marching into the Gate; Zosia’s eyes had just been playing tricks on her. The procession passed by the rim of the Gate, into which everyone cast their rushlights, and then the darkened march took a sharp turn and filed out through one of the other four boulevards that opened onto the square. On the far side of the Gate from where the crowd quenched their candles in the First Dark was the People’s Pack, sitting at a long table like nobles at a garden party. Behind them the rear of the square was filled with heavily armored militia members standing at attention, and in front of them, between Diadem’s new rulers and the Gate, was Indsorith.
Zosia had imagined the worst. The girl screaming her last as the executioner removed another panel of her flesh, or already dead, crucified upside down on the edge of the Gate. Such heavy-handed symbolism seemed inevitable from the People’s Pack. And while Zosia hadn’t been far off on that count, she wasn’t too late, either. Not quite.
Indsorith was lashed to a stake, her arms pulled up over her head. In place of a crown she wore a dunce’s cap, her mouth gagged and her eyes blindfolded. An absurd array of gems sparkled at her throat and across her stomach, at her wrists and fingers, on her ankles and toes, but otherwise she wore only her skin. And as the sickliest yellow sheen bruised the low-hanging clouds overhead they prepared to deprive her of even that—the woman wearing a bear mask who knelt over a black sword to one side of the stake began to rise, as did the dog-faced man bowing over Zosia’s hammer on the opposite side, and then Zosia began to move, too.
As she did, one of the hooded figures nearing the Gate broke from the procession, walking briskly around the side toward the bound queen and the seated representatives. Guards swiftly moved past the People’s Pack to intercept the man as he shouted and waved his hands over its head, and Zosia hesitated. She felt fitter than she had in years, full of fighting vigor and with a powerful devil at her side, but one misstep and the militia could and definitely would execute Indsorith—slitting her throat might be less of a spectacle than the slow flaying they intended, but they would surely prefer that to letting Zosia walk away with her.
“Listen up, Chop …” From the way he was wagging his tail he must have known he was in for a treat. “We act natural, stroll up nice and easy, but as soon as they see through my disguise we rush in, grab Indsorith, and jump into the Gate. You take us through to … shit, the Usban Gate, I guess. Far from here as possible. Trve’s nice this time of year.”
He whined, but she didn’t know if this was a criticism of her scheme on the whole or just the lack of carnage involved.
“If they kill her, though …” Zosia would want to murder everyone in this square if not the whole city, but that was hardly going to give her devil any incentive to help in the rescue. “If she dies, Chop, you and me hop into the Gate, pronto. But as long as she’s alive I’m going to keep fighting to free her, which means you get to eat as much as you want. So let’s go put some meat on those bones.”
Choplicker barked his assent to that part of the plan, at least. Straightening the orange militia tabard Boris has provided over the ringmail shirt she’d stolen on her way out of the castle, Zosia stepped back into the procession and hurried along its side toward the Gate. Up ahead another figure detached from the throng and joined the first, the pair arguing with the guards who were preventing them from approaching either the bound queen or the People’s Pack. As they carried on a member of the council rose and headed over to the commotion …
Not much of a distraction but better than none—Zosia would go around the other side, where there weren’t already guards between her and Indsorith. She waited until she was at the very edge of the Gate and then hoisted the chipped buckler and shitty sword she had taken along with the armor. She started strolling around the left side of the Gate, but Choplicker, capricious monster that he was, trotted to the right, barking bloody murder as he ran to where the huddle of guards was engaging the pair who had cut from line. One of the troublemakers was a Flintlander with big white hair like Maroto’s nephew, but Zosia wasn’t worried about them right now, taking advantage of Choplicker’s addition to the diversion to march briskly around the opposite side of the Gate. Nothing to see here, just another member of the militia working security detail … And just like that she was rumbled, several members of the People’s Pack standing up and pointing straight at her. Oh well. Zosia charged. It felt a lot like old times, rushing in with no real plan against impossible odds. Both of Indsorith’s executioners were on their feet now, their weapons ready, but for the moment, at least, nothing stood between them and Cold Zosia, the Banshee with a Blade.
CHAPTER
18
Lightning struck the Temple of Pentacles, arcing down its abalone roof and webbing across the open doors so that despite the darkness of the stormy dawn, the red stars set in the peachwood panels could be seen on the far side of the Gate. Beyond the temple steps the flash illuminated the rear of the Tothan army as it crossed the fields, driving into the Autumn Palace. Ji-hyeon stepped through onto the top step, the smells of lightning and the wet earth turned up by the marching invaders making her eyes fill. Fellwing flapped back to her shoulder, perhaps to strengthen herself before the coming struggle or maybe just because she didn’t like flying in such heavy rain. They were home. And even better, her sister Yunjin’s scrying was proven accurate, the timing of their return as perfect as Ji-hyeon could have hoped—Jex Toth had already punched a way into Othean for her, now all she had to do was follow them through and claim the empress’s head.
Tempting though it was just to let the Tothans and the Immaculates fight it out for a while, weakening each other before she swept in to dominate them both, that sort of cold calculation had no place in a hot-blooded mortal heart. Well, okay, it initially had, when Yunjin had intoned in her witch-trance that Othean had been besieged by a monstrous army, but that was over a year ago now and in the intervening months Ji-hyeon had reconsidered her initial impulse to sit back and watch them kill each other from a safe distance. She had sworn vengeance against her hated enemy, no matter the cost, but if for convenience’s sake she stood by and let the innocent subjects of the Immaculate Isles perish at the hands of the Tothans, that made her no better than the empress. Besides that, her loyal Cobalts were probably still locked up in Othean.
All the same, sounding the attack now would be trouble. Better to wait until the Tothans had advanced farther across the fields toward the Autumn Palace, lest they become aware of the danger at their rear and stop the flood before it even started. Using a Gate had its advantages, but there was no escaping the fact it was one tight bottleneck—something to keep in mind once she sat on the Samjok-o Throne. If you built a barrack out here and positioned a st
anding force of a hundred soldiers they could defend the Gate indefinitely, no matter the size of the army attempting to cross through; you wouldn’t need more than a dozen of your best, really, but eventually their arms would grow tired from all the slaying and they’d need to be swapped out.
“Ahhh!”
She jumped at the sound of Hyori’s voice, and turned to scold her for coming through before Ji-hyeon gave the command—what was it with family and thinking they were exempt from following direct orders? Seeing the look of rapture on Hyori’s face as she breathed in the sultry Immaculate air, though, Ji-hyeon gave her younger sister a great big hug instead of a reprimand. Her formerly younger sister, anyway—besides being one of her best captains the woman was also as old as their fathers had been, back when all this started.
“Do you think they’re through the inner wall yet?” asked Hyori, a far better tactician than her sister. This was her plan, and she was more excited about seeing it go off well than hugging her general.
“Let’s get up on top of the temple for a better look,” said Ji-hyeon. “Choi showed me how right before we used the Gate for the first time. We crawled up and watched the sunrise over the palace. If you can reach that beam up there you pull yourself up into the eaves and—”
“You are not getting onto a roof in the middle of a thunderstorm,” said Hyori, sounding exactly like their first father … and then like their second when she added a cheeky, “General.”
“Oh gods, do you remember when we were climbing that droning pyramid north of Turbid and Sasamaso started in about how—”
“That’s our signal,” said Hyori, and following her nod Ji-hyeon saw that their appearance on the temple steps had finally been noticed, half a dozen spindly demons breaking off from the advancing army to double back and investigate. This was how it started, Ji-hyeon’s three-fingered hand itching for its sword just as she knew the sword was itching for her palm. “Should you—”
A War in Crimson Embers Page 42