by Andrew Post
“I had this made for you.” Ruprecht laid Peter’s hand atop the black steel. But once unguided, it slid off and thumped to the dirt a loose fist. Ruprecht barked into the woods the direction Lodi had gone. “Fix him. Use whatever weird goop you need to, but get him . . . less like that.”
* * *
Hour by hour, the sky was a shade brighter. Gray, followed by softer gray. Every time she shifted her leg, even a little, a bolt of pain ripped through her. Sitting up, Anoushka delicately pulled back her blanket. It was heavy with blood. The bandage must’ve come loose. They had planned to remove the bullet in the morning. Her breath fogging her blind with each grunt, Anoushka hobbled over to their pile of gear and dug through Kylie-Nae’s bag with only the word pills on her mind. Finally, she found the tin of chalky tablets and slapped four into her mouth, swallowing them dry. She stabbed her boot knife into the glowing embers. She waited a few long minutes, the pills not working fast enough.
Afterward, she hobbled away from the camp, her knife trailing a delicate string of steam behind her.
She sat on a rock, took three deep breaths, and with a branch clenched in her teeth, brought the knife’s tip near her leg’s puckered wound. The bark crunched, its taste like dirt. A muted hiss and a puff of smoke when the hot blade met the wound. With both hands for the added dexterity, she pushed down. Deeper, deeper, easing in. She could smell herself burning. Through the handle, she felt the knife’s tip clink against something harder than muscle and bone. One sharp whimper escaped through her nose as she levered the knife. She had caught the bullet and little by little, worked the slug back from the well it had dug in her flesh.
When it popped free to tumble down her leg and thud to the dirt, bloody and misshapen, she spat out the branch and fell back. She lay there, concentrating only on counting her breaths. Do not pass out, do not pass out.
An hour passed, the surrounding copse abandoning its mystery. A mundane wood, nothing more. Anoushka had been nervous the gobs, hungry for retaliation, might venture out into the night to exact revenge. But they hadn’t, likely because the beast o’ the blazes had been spotted about. She wondered how many gobs Teetee had killed, earning his myth, simply trying to get near his master.
Once able, Anoushka returned to the camp. Noise was unavoidable while she prepared coffee, but during their years together as a squad, Anoushka’s morning routine of banging around had often been the squad’s alarm clock. And like before, as the speckled blue pot began gurgling over the fire and the wondrous aroma toured the campsite, like magick, heads started to rise off pillows. They seemed relieved, even if it meant waking up sore and stiff on the cold, hard ground.
At least they were away from their dreams, if they were anything like Anoushka’s brought on by the events of last night.
* * *
“Ready?” Kylie-Nae said.
“I took care of it.”
Kylie-Nae goggled. “You got out the bullet, on your own . . . ?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, damn. I could’ve done it.”
“I know. It kept waking me up.”
“I slept for shit last night.”
Careful of the mossy rocks, Anoushka sat and rolled her pant legs to the knees. She sank her injured leg, incrementally, into the water until the wound was under. Probably not good for it, bacteria-wise, but the water’s numbing cold was a blessing.
Kylie-Nae disrobed and waded out until she was up to her chin. Teeth chattering, she said, “After you turned in, I took over cleaning Peter. Just wanted to make sure he didn’t have anything infected. But when I got south of the equator . . .”
Chilled in two different ways hearing this, Anoushka frowned.
“Maybe it was part of his sentence,” Kylie-Nae added, “judge’s order or something. He has some left, but it kind of tapers off to one side. Like they didn’t use anything, simply . . . tore it off him.” She shivered.
“Gods.”
“Shame, too,” Kylie-Nae said. “You could’ve split rocks with that thing of his.”
“You and he . . . ?”
Kylie-Nae had sounded as if she’d wanted Anoushka to ask, but now that it was out there, she lowered herself into the water up to her nose. Bobbing up again, she said, “Just the once,” hooking the hair from the corner of her mouth with a finger.
“When?”
“After our dustup with the Cooke Gang. Peter hardly drank, but I’d convinced him he’d earned it and . . . well, we didn’t want the rest of you to know, so I gave him a look and said I’d be taking a walk.”
“I remember.” Anoushka never suspected they were doing anything other than pissing at separate ends of the beach.
Kylie-Nae ground the soap bar against the back of her neck. “And, well, we had a quick roll.” She submerged, her hair a sunspot starfish on the water a moment before she surfaced again, face framed with dripping golden banners. “Don’t really know why. I drank a fair amount that night too.” She paused. “I think Zuther knew. Soon as we came back, he was making this face. I mean, I knew he liked me—Zuther, that is—but not like that. I thought, at first, he was just mad because I was alone with Peter, but I don’t think it was just concern for my life.”
“That and you had a thing going on with Matthew already. I mean, not to speak ill of the dead, but Matthew was kind of a jerk to Zuther. And Zuther didn’t just like you; he was in love with you.” Unlike Matthew, who wasn’t likely to drop to one knee for Kylie-Nae or anyone other than his own reflection.
“Okay, okay, I believe I got enough shit in Outstanding Valor,” Kylie-Nae said. “I don’t need it from you too.”
“Sorry.”
Kylie-Nae sighed. “I’m sorry. This probably doesn’t really make it sound any better, but it’s probably why I never really fancied Zuther in return. It was just there, waiting. I suppose I prefer moving targets.” She looked out into the deeper portion of the Trynt, the water whitening as it struck over rocks poking above. “Not that it matters, even if we both wanted it to. With Peter, I mean. Or Matthew. Or Zuther, with him swearing his never-touch-a-lady-again oath with the House of the Loving Flame. Still, gentler than I expected. With Peter. I thought, ‘Oh, a go with a berserker’s got to be a serious blood pumper,’ but he was quiet the whole time. No kissing, no downstairs stuff, just right to it. Which was fine. I was kind of in a state ever since that day’s kerfuffle ended. Guess he was too.” Kylie-Nae swept her hair back to stop the trickle going in her eyes. “Ever get that?”
“Get what?”
“Wound up after?”
“Sure.”
“Does it mean we’re fucked up, you think? It takes killing to put us in the mood?”
“Probably.” Anoushka laughed. “Kidding. No, I think it’s got more to do with having survived some harrowing ordeal and that can, you know, make you wanna . . . engage in other activities.” If she wasn’t injured, would she be feeling that leftover heat circling in her?
“Make replacements since we took lives? Balance it out?” Kylie-Nae’s gaze grew distant.
Anoushka assumed she’d suddenly thought about her daughter. “I suppose.” After last night, she was hoping for sunnier topics. An innocuous white noise as the river coursed—shhhh.
Startling them both, upriver, Teetee leaped into the water. It was barely a minute before he was paddling back to the rocks with a fish thrashing in his teeth. On the bank, one violent shake ended the carp’s attempts at escape. He sprang up the hill to return to his master’s side, only footprints and a smattering of shining silver scales remaining.
Anoushka caught a whiff of something. Wet dog? No, she realized, lifting an elbow. Me. She missed splashing with her friends in the hot springs on the tundra, naked as the day, shameless, but it stung to even consider now. Like anytime she was naked in view of anyone—and sometimes, even alone—she felt as if she were covered in bees. Too much time away from Raleen, some would probably suggest. Too much time south, with humans. Still, she made herself undress—b
ehind a tree—and held her jacket in front of herself until she was neck-deep in the water. Worth the extra work if it meant ridding herself of Breakshale’s reek.
Catching the soap bar when Kylie-Nae tossed it over, Anoushka ran it against her scalp, hard, like trying to sharpen a stick against a rock.
“So Lyle’s onto us,” Kylie-Nae said, watching Anoushka’s bubbles escape downstream. “Think he’ll retreat into greenie territory?”
“If he hasn’t ever left,” Anoushka said, wringing out her hair. “He could be sitting right beside Skivvit in Silt if he’s using the devices Lodi was talking about. Hopefully, we’ll get some answers in Yarnigrad. A lead, at least.”
With a piece of shale, Anoushka swiped the muck from under her fingernails. “Do you trust him?”
“Ruprecht?” Kylie-Nae picked at the flaking skin on her palms. The rocks at her feet looked like it’d snowed. It reminded Anoushka of how in school they used to let glue dry on their hands simply for the pleasure of picking it off.
“Well, that shit with Markus was pretty underhanded—but the gun wasn’t loaded, as he said. Which doesn’t make it any better. Plus, I mean, I can’t say we never employed a few untoward methods when needing something from someone ourselves, back in the day.”
Solid point.
“Still,” Kylie-Nae said, pinching away a big flake from the heel of her palm, “that was a pretty shitty way for somebody to die. How old was he, anyway?”
“Dunno,” Anoushka said. “Eighteen, seventeen?”
“Doesn’t really matter; any age is too young to go like that.”
“Yeah,” Anoushka said.
Returning to the shallows, Anoushka stared Kylie-Nae’s way until she got the hint and blindfolded herself with a hand. Once she did, Anoushka stepped from the river and quickly dressed.
During her two years with Erik, Anoushka never realized how lonely she’d been, even when she’d been living with him—while sitting in the same room with him, sometimes. And though a romantic bond could be deep and good and life-affirming, a friendship, in Anoushka’s experience, went further, deeper. The word friend didn’t seem to carry the right weight for what it represented. There should be another that framed the feeling of having a lifelong friend more accurately. That when said, rang of the feeling of being around them. Because friend could be defined as a coworker you don’t entirely loathe, or a neighbor who always says good morning as you both step out to fetch the morning paper.
Though whatever it was Anoushka and Kylie-Nae had, it didn’t really need a better word. Some things didn’t need a label. Words messed things up. Some unnamed could never be misused. Lies only existed because language did.
Anoushka, once dressed, put her arm around Kylie-Nae. And she put her arm around her in return. They went back up the hill where the others were packing their things.
Ruprecht and Russell had loaded Peter into the back of Ruprecht’s caravan. The bard, without his assistant, was going to have to drive himself. He climbed up onto the bench and took the reins, gave Anoushka a sidelong glance, then snapped his gaze to meet with the road without another word.
With their donkeys having fled, they took Yarnigrad Approach Road by foot, lugging their gear, squinting past the pounding noon suns. Minus a horse, Ruprecht kept tweaking the reins to keep his last overburdened horse straight.
Teetee kept steady pace alongside. Keeping Peter in sight was all that seemed to matter.
After only a mile, Ruprecht asked if Anoushka wanted to ride with him. She agreed and realized once up there, he’d likely asked only because her limping would put them further behind schedule.
The bard wasn’t in costume today. Instead, he wore a tattered riding cloak and patched, too-short trousers. Sitting forward, elbows on knees, he wrenched the reins again to keep them on the road. Quiet, sullen. Looking like he wanted Anoushka to ask if he was okay—he kept sighing these deep, woe-is-me sighs. Anoushka didn’t ask. She didn’t care.
To her right, Ceaille Gulf. The Gods’ Error distantly, hazed. A stony hand rose out of the gulf’s middle: stubborn summits that had survived eternities of assaults by the salty water. In the middle, spiked into the palm, the tallest formation, a natural stone tower, stood. A derrick of metal struts was bolted to its summit, bristling with antennae and cobwebbed in wire and cable. Anoushka wondered how many of those masts standing above the water here and there were the failed, lethal attempts to get out there to erect the thing.
Gods forbid towns in the south miss a single one of the Ma’am’s daily broadcasts.
A steady chuk-chuk-chuk came from behind. On the tracks running parallel to the road, a steam engine passed, towing its line of passenger and freight cars, belching a cottony dotted line from its smokestack. It quickly outpaced the caravan. Each face in the windows of the many passenger cars wore a look of amusement at those on the road, as if they were some kind of backward idiots who hadn’t heard of this new, faster method of getting places. Punching in through a grove of trees down the bend, the train left only its sweet-smelling smoke.
“I’m quite prolific,” Ruprecht said once the noise had fallen away to silence. “Published mostly under pen names. I do three a year under my own, and if the muses are kind, ten through pseudonyms. Same with songs but not in such an abundance; masking your voice in prose is easier than with recorded music.” He smiled. “I can sing only the one way.”
Anoushka wasn’t sure why he was telling her this. “Okay.”
“Last night you embarrassed me,” he said. “In front of everyone. In front of my protagonist.”
“I’m sorry if I hurt your precious feelings,” Anoushka said, “but not only did you send us into that shit-show; you sent in Markus under orders to kill us if—”
“We covered this. But if it requires reiteration: the gun wasn’t loaded. And even so, I’d do it again if I knew it’d keep you all in line. We broke the Law of Neutrality storming in there and—”
“It was your fucking idea. And you weren’t there, if I remember it right. So using we is just plain inaccurate.”
“Please don’t interrupt me, Miss Demaine.” A beat. “I hate gambling; I don’t enjoy risk unless I know I have a better-than-good chance of obtaining what I’m after. We’re going to be wanted, if the gobs report the breakout. But if we hadn’t freed Peter, we wouldn’t have a thrill-rag, and there’d be no money once it’s published to fight the charges—should they come.”
“So it’s all about money.”
“Are you new? When’s it not? Tell me, when you were contracting in the past, why were you doing it, if not for the pay?”
“Don’t change subjects. Markus died, badly, and you didn’t even seem to give a shit.”
Ruprecht rolled his eyes. “This is exhausting.” One caravan wheel had already started off onto the grassy roadside. He tweaked their single horse straight again, hard. “I could stand in any town square and ask the first pigeon-toed goober who shuffled by if he’d like a job. Presto, new assistant. Replaceable. Just like you.
“I can erase you. From history, from everywhere. I can recall Outstanding Valor from the shops and write Dark Against Dark with a fiction standing in your stead. Gone. Truth is what’s presented loudest. And by that rationale, I can go further than merely remove you from Dark Against Dark. With my pen names, I can completely defame you within a week. And those stains, satires, often outlive any truths. Imagine two or three Ages from now, nasty songs about you still circulating, sung in a slurry chorus by drunks. Come to think of it, my muse might be visiting me as we speak . . .
“The snowie gal with the golden cunt,
she’ll give you whatever you want.
Though she’s just stolen a prince
just give her a rinse.
She’ll be ready and able
before you can say this time let’s have it on the table.”
“You think I care what people think?” Anoushka said. “I barely care what I think about anything.”
�
�How about Tsar Ealifrae? Suppose you’d care what he’d think? Because I’ve heard a real juicy one about how some temptress from the wrong side of the tracks siren-called him away from his betrothed merely a week before his wedding.”
“How do you know about that?”
“If it’s true how some truth stands behind all humor, the same goes for gossip. Scrape off the exaggerations, and more often than not, you’ll find a kernel of what really happened. He must’ve gabbed, laughing with his buddies over his tryst with his ghetto girl. I doubt you told anyone—as tempting as it must’ve been to share the tale of your one night of passion with that particular boy from up the street. Just as it was for me, pitching my idea for thrill-rags to the Duke: it’s thrilling, stealing crumbs you know you don’t really deserve, getting a taste of your betters. Difference being, of course, my crumb didn’t taste like some effete snowie prince’s come.” Snapping the reins, he put them straight again. “Per the rumor mill’s churn—so, again, take this with a grain of salt—since her wedding day, the tsarina, perhaps to prove herself worthy of the title, has proven to be quite the ruthless one. She’s arranged misfortune for those who’ve made far less a transgression than yours against her. I can’t imagine how she might react if she learned her husband-by-arranged-marriage was unfaithful, even if the act of infidelity occurred before any vows had been exchanged. A miserable thing, isn’t it? He got to have his fun without repercussion because he’s a man. Yet, you, a woman, have to play the depository of both cock itself and the cock’s tagalong trouble. Disease. Public scorn. Reputation dashed upon the smoldering volcanic rocks of lust. Fortunately for you, no illegitimate spawn was produced. Gods, imagine what cruel things they would’ve said then. The gutter snipe from the East Ward, her belly rounded with royal baby? Ouch. Stings to even imagine.”
“If you tell anyone . . .”
“That’s in my discretion. Without me, you’d be still chopping down trees, pouting over your gone-too-soon glory days. I, and I alone, can shoehorn something from your nigh-depleted worth. Because that’s the world we live in: hands and throats. Hands do as the throats say. Let me, as your throat, continue to want your success as a mostly-still-able hand, Miss Demaine.” Ruprecht yanked the reins, deliberately putting them onto the roadside this time. Tugging the brake lever, he nearly pitched Anoushka over the front. “You can walk from here.”