by Sam Sykes
My grin lasted just as long as it took to look up and see the arrow burst into sparks as it reached the height of its arc and then fall down.
Right into my path.
I pulled Congeniality back as it struck the earth in front of her and exploded in a shower of light and soil. She reared, shrieking and trying desperately to backpedal, which, when you’re a gigantic murderbird, isn’t particularly graceful. Or conducive to keeping a rider on.
She tossed me from the saddle and I landed hard on the earth, the wind kicked out of me. Over the sound of me trying to gulp down air, I could hear the rumble of talons on the earth. Eyes still rolling in my head, I could make out the blurry shapes of three riders thundering across the plains. Not letting a little thing like a potential concussion stop me, I scrambled to my feet, blade held high as the birds drew close.
The cavaliers wheeled right, arrows drawn as they took off in pursuit of a trail of black smoke winding across the sky. Perhaps they didn’t notice me. Or perhaps they didn’t think me a threat. I’d have been offended if I didn’t realize what they were going for.
The Boar.
Fuck.
I sheathed Jeff and glanced around for Congeniality, found her not twenty feet away, the panic of the flash of thunder now subsumed by the intense desire to sniff her own asshole. That was plenty of distance to think of a suitable swear word for her by the time I got to her. But before I could even get moving, I heard the whisper of flame behind me.
I leapt away as a gout of flame raked the earth where I had stood, leaving behind a patch of black earth scarred by howling fires. Through sheets of red, I could see the rider, a smirk across his face painted in shadow by the smoldering head of his flameglaive.
“Fuck.”
I know I said I’d think of another swear, but I was a little preoccupied running from the flaming wall of death pursuing me. I ran as hard as I could, rushing toward Congeniality as the rider spurred after me, his flameglaive spewing gouts of red laughter in my wake, the earth belching smoke as it ate the land behind me.
Congeniality let out a disgruntled squawk as I leapt atop her and kicked her flanks.
“Go, bitch, go!”
That wasn’t how one addressed a lady. But if the urgency in my voice didn’t make her go, the fire certainly did. As flames lapped at her heels, she took off running.
I tried to find enough breath through the smoke to think. I had to get clear of the rider, far from the flames, far enough to take a shot. I spurred Congeniality forward, reached for the Cacophony at my hip.
But his bird was smaller, more agile. And, as it turned out, a hell of a lot faster.
I caught him out of the corner of my eye, pulling his bird up alongside me and leveling his flameglaive. I could see the sawed teeth of its head grinning beneath a veil of flame as it burst into bright red, eager to consume me.
In an inescapable situation like this, the only two possible reactions are stupidity or panic.
I’ll give you a guess which one I chose.
I jerked Congeniality to the right, sent her slamming against the other bird. I reached out, seized the flameglaive beneath its head, and forced it upward, a plume of flame erupting into the sky. He had range and speed on me—if we tried to run, I’d be incinerated. The only way out now was staying close enough to keep it pointed away.
Neither his nor my own snarling could be heard over the roar of flame as we struggled with the glaive, me trying to keep him from pointing it at me, him quite insistent that I’d look better as a pile of cinders. But he was bigger and stronger, and I was winded. Even with both hands, I could feel my grip weakening, the tip pointing toward me.
I growled, kicking Congeniality, but she couldn’t move faster than the bird at her flank. From the corner of my eye, I saw that bird peer toward her and lash out with its razor-thin beak, carving a red line across Congeniality’s breast.
That certainly wasn’t how one addressed a lady.
Congeniality turned an indignant yellow-eyed scowl toward the bird. Her broad beak snapped down, clamping onto the bird’s neck. It was smaller, lighter, more maneuverable. But she was a Badlander—bigger, stronger, and so, so much meaner.
The bird shrieked in alarm as Congeniality jerked its neck in her beak. The snap of its neck was louder even than the roar of flame. The rider let out a shriek to match as his bird disappeared from under him, the glaive slipping from his hands and into mine as he went tumbling to the earth to be trampled beneath talons.
“Damn, girl.” I watched his bloodied body roll across the plains as we put him behind us. “You couldn’t do that earlier?”
Congeniality didn’t know any words beyond food and don’t shit there, but she let out a warning squawk all the same. I was content to leave it lie as I spurred her forward.
The Boar drove into view, veering wildly left and right as it weaved between electric explosions, the remaining riders trying to pull up beside it and finish it off. I had to admit, I was impressed by Cavric’s driving. I didn’t know that a thing as clunky as the Boar could move like that. Neither did the Imperium, for that matter. Their eyes were focused on their aim and not, say, on the woman with the big fiery weapon riding up behind them.
I raised the glaive, pulled up behind them. They’d slowed down to improve their aim. Mistake. I leveled the weapon at them, clutched it tight. Flames washed out and over, sending one rider down in a screaming, blackened heap. The other glanced over his shoulder just in time to catch a tongue of fire to the face.
I spurred Congeniality on, toward the Boar. We got close to the door and I gave her reins a tug. Clever girl that she was, she leapt in, body shuddering with the effort. I clung to the top of the door frame, pulled myself up top to the roof. There had been a dozen riders and I had killed only four. I clambered to my feet, ready to pick them off from above.
But as I looked up, I saw the remaining riders falling back. I smirked. Perhaps they’d seen the tattoos and the gun and saw who I was. Perhaps they realized the stupidity of trying to pick a fight with Sal the Cacophony.
A shadow streaked across the plains. I heard a scream from above. I looked up.
Or perhaps, I thought, they just figured out they could sit back and let the giant fucking flying bird finish me off.
You wouldn’t have seen it, at first, a pair of great gray wings falling out of a great gray sky. I only knew what I was looking at once I saw the black talons, the bright red beak across a giant owl’s face, the great eyebrows that trailed behind it like banners in the wind.
A Grukai.
Even as gigantic murderbirds went, Grukai were exceptional for their size, ferocity, and exceptionally foul demeanors. The Imperium used these for shock missions, swooping down to seize Revolutionaries from battle lines and tear them apart in the sky, raining viscera upon their horrified comrades.
I suppose I should have been flattered that Judge Karthrien saw fit to use it just for me.
And maybe I would, after I was done shitting myself. But when Karthrien drew his long blade and spurred the bird toward me, all I could think to do was duck.
I couldn’t hear the rush of the beast’s wings as it sailed over me. But I felt the great breath of wind, the chill of its shadow, and more importantly, the bright blossom of pain as a single talon ripped through my back and drew a bright line across my spine.
My mouth erupted in a scream as my body erupted in agony. I was lucky to escape with just that. If I had been a little slower, if its claw had gone a little deeper, I’d have watched it sailing away with my spine in its talons. As it stood, when I bit back the pain long enough to get back to my feet, I saw my blood painted across the sky as the Grukai sailed across.
As it wheeled around.
As it came back toward me.
Its owlish eyes were trained on me. It had seen my trick, learned from it. It wouldn’t miss this time and I wouldn’t get more than one shot.
Pain and fear made me fumble as I unsheathed the Cacophony. He coo
led as my fingers wrapped around his grip, bidding me to be calm. I drew a breath, held it. I raised the gun, felt him grow bright in my hands as I aimed him toward the onrushing bird.
I had one shot.
I pulled the trigger. The shell shrieked into the wind. The Grukai tumbled out of the way, ready to dodge before I had even fired. In a moment of fear, I knew I’d missed and my heart dropped into my belly.
And then Hellfire exploded.
Fire bloomed across the sky in a triumphant cackle. Red claws raked out in all directions, seizing the Grukai’s wings in burning fingers. The beast shrieked, twisting violently through the air and leaving a trail of burning feathers in its wake. My heart leapt out of my guts and into my grin as I watched Karthrien fly from his saddle and sail through the air on a plume of smoke.
He tumbled like a fly with one wing, twisting in the wind as his bird went skidding to the earth in a spray of soil. My sole regret was that I was too far away to hear him scream. All I could hear was the roar of the engines, the screaming of the bird, and…
And the Lady’s song.
“Of course,” I sighed.
I saw him whip his hand out. A chorus of black tendrils burst from his glove, reaching out in the blink of an eye to sink thorny claws into the roof of the Boar. In another second, they tensed. They pulled. I glanced up from them to see him flying through the air, pulled by the tendrils toward me, his blade aloft.
And coming down.
I pulled the flameglaive up just in time to feel my arms almost snap under the weight of the blow. His sword, a long and jagged-looking edge masquerading as a civilized weapon, smashed into the haft of the glaive, bearing me down to my knees. I dropped the Cacophony, taking the weapon in both hands as I tried to hold back the strike.
He was stronger, taller, and decidedly less drinking-out-of-a-chamber-pot than I had imagined. His arms, left bare by the Imperial uniform he wore, barely tensed as he drove me back with his blade. Beneath the visor of his helmet, his eyes almost looked bored.
“I confess being impressed, Vagrant.” Karthrien’s voice betrayed a decided lack of effort on his part. “I saw you use magic keen as any mage, yet I heard no song. Was that the work of the weapon you wield?” He pressed a little harder, driving me a little lower. “A crime worthy of immediate and painful death, but don’t let that diminish your accomplishment.”
“You’re too kind, asshole,” I grunted in reply, fully aware that it was hard to sound intimidating on one knee and visibly struggling.
My eyes darted to the edge of the Boar’s roof. The Cacophony trembled precariously across the roof, ready to tumble off. I could feel his burn from here—worried that he’d fall off, but far, far more pissed off that I had dropped him. But even through his burn, I could feel a sudden chill creeping across my skin.
Karthrien’s blade was enveloped in a blue mist, ice forming across the metal and biting through the glaive’s haft. A frostbrand—of fucking course he would have a frostbrand. It’s not fucking enough to have a giant killer bird or a bunch of creepy-ass tendrils; he needs a magic fucking frosty-sword as well.
Fucking mages.
“I feel I should apologize, too,” he said, voice still frighteningly effortless. “I admit that our information on you has been discouragingly sparse in comparison to more, shall we say, well-known Vagrants like the Hardrock or the Dervish.”
“The Dervish?” I spat, incensed. “How do you know about him? He throws fucking rocks! His name doesn’t even make sense!”
“Now, now, don’t be bitter. Your name will be the toast of Cathama when I make my report.” He seized his weapon in both hands, pressed down. “You’ll be dead, of course, but I promise the talk will be tasteful.”
Wood cracked. Frost whispered. The glaive split in two in my hands. I narrowly had time to roll away before his blade sank down, a jagged blade of ice biting through the metal of the roof. I rolled to my feet, aimed the head of the flameglaive at him, shut my eyes, and concentrated.
Flame erupted in a roaring sheet of laughter, washing over Karthrien. He pulled his blade out, raised it before him. The fire parted like a wave, slithering off to either side of him as his frostbrand’s magic absorbed the heat, steam cloaking him in white clouds. From behind it, I saw him swing his blade. Shards of frost shot out in a fan, a jagged piece grazing my arm. Blood blossomed, the flames guttering as the glaive’s head fell from my hand.
I made a lame reach for it as it tumbled off the roof. It would have been too little even if I hadn’t felt a boot kick me in the chest. I rolled back onto the roof, grimacing as a leather heel dug into my belly. Painful as it was, it wasn’t quite as bad as the frigid gasp of air as the frostbrand leveled at my throat.
“She uses magic without a song. She uses a flameglaive like she was born holding one.” Karthrien flipped the visor of his helmet up to regard me through disdainful eyes. “What manner of Vagrant are…”
He paused as he took me in. Without the visor of his helm, without the rush of battle to distract him, he regarded me through eyes that grew wide with recognition. His mouth hung open as he whispered breathlessly:
“You.”
“Me,” I replied.
My boot shot up, caught him in the belly. He staggered away toward the edge of the roof, grunting in surprise and pain. When he regained his senses, he looked up into the grinning barrel of the Cacophony.
“And him.”
I pulled the trigger.
Discordance erupted, a wall of sound and force that sent us both flying. But only one of us had seen it coming. So while I tumbled to the edge of the roof and narrowly managed to cling to it, he went flying into the air, with neither bird nor magic to save him.
I clawed my way back onto the roof. Through veils of smoke and the acrid tang of electricity and twisted metal, I watched him vanish in the wake of chewed earth left by the Boar. I drew breaths that came with stinging pain.
That hadn’t gone well.
Not that I had expected it to go better—nothing is ever improved with the addition of tentacles, after all. But we had lost too much time and the Boar was rattling ominously as it rumbled across the plains. It was worrying to see the Imperium active this far away from any garrison. Almost as worrying as the look that Karthrien had given me just before I blew him away.
All told, it was a lot of mess and all I had to show for it was the sound of his scream in my ears.
But I’d say it was worth it.
TWENTY-TWO
YENTAL RIVER
There are a thousand tales about the Ashmouths.
It’s said they once plundered the Mad Emperor’s Tomb and evaded his everlasting curse. It’s rumored they once assassinated every member of the Great General’s advisory board in a single night. And some have even said that they move so silently that no Relic, spell, or sight of Haven can ever detect them.
It’s impossible to say which of these are true, which are the imaginings of a public house drunk, and which are the ones the Ashmouths made up to further their own reputation as people you don’t want to fuck with.
If you want someone dead who can’t be killed, the Ashmouths are the only people who can kill them. If you want something stolen that can’t be found, the Ashmouths are the only people who can find it. And if you want to conduct business of a nefarious nature without their approval, the Ashmouths are the only people you can’t escape.
Which made the fact that my ass was currently rubbing itself all over their property particularly dangerous.
The crates had been stacked neatly beneath the eaves of a pair of bowing willows on a quiet little cove at the edge of the Yental’s deepest stretch, each one marked with the sigil of a black tongue extended from twin rows of grinning teeth, a clear warning to anyone who thought they’d lucked out by finding caches of weapons, alchemics, and whatever other smuggled goods were in this thing.
Granted, I hadn’t looked in any of them, let alone taken something from them, but the Ashmouths weren’t
likely to take kindly to me sitting on them. And they certainly weren’t likely to take kindly to Congeniality devouring a dead rabbit next to them, spattering the crates with its entrails.
But fuck it. We were both tired. Tired enough that we hadn’t joined Liette and Cavric in their foraging.
The battle on the plains had taken more time out of our schedule and more blood out of me than I cared to admit. Despite what crude treatments I could manage in the rattling Boar, my back still stung from the cut and my bones still ached. Congeniality, too, was so exhausted she barely had the energy to messily devour a dead animal.
Not that the Ashmouths would care, of course. Chances were good they’d kill one of us and force-feed our remains to the other one.
That is, if they ever showed up. For all the rumors surrounding them, there is not one legend of them being punctual.
The sun was hidden behind an endless cloak of gray overhead, making it impossible to tell what time it was. The Yental stretched lazily out before me, bereft of anything but a fog bank so dense I couldn’t see the other shoreline. Not so much as a ripple of a curious fish disturbed its rambling mutter as it flowed northward.
And the Ashmouths were nowhere to be seen.
These goods were meant for them, it was certain. What wasn’t certain was when they’d pick them up. There were hundreds of drop-off points like this around the Yental. If this wasn’t the right one for the right time, I’d miss my chance to make contact with them entirely. That meant I’d never find out how Vraki got the obelisk that allowed him to summon his Scrath. That meant I’d never stop him. That meant I’d never kill him. Or Taltho. Or Riccu.
Or Jindu.
That thought was like a crack in my skull, and through it, all the other cold, dark little words came flowing out.
They’d escape me. With the children from Stark’s Mutter. With whatever plot they were thinking up. With black laughter on their lips as they got away with it, again.