“I think it’s suicide,” said Kerrigan. “But seeing as I’m partially responsible for our current predicament, I suppose getting killed trying to rectify it isn’t all bad. I’m in.”
“I’ll go, too,” said Jolan. “From what these documents show, there could be technology in the skyship that we can salvage. That’s worth just as much as the food.”
“Simeon?”
He shrugged. “Screw it. I’d rather get eaten by a dragon than keep eating bugs and worms for every meal.”
“Says the asshole wearing a suit of dragon-scale armor,” Kerrigan mumbled. Simeon ignored her.
“I’ll go, too,” said Willem.
“No,” said Bershad. “Someone needs to keep the pressure on the Balarians while we’re getting this done. Put those maps Felgor stole to good use, and make the enemy hurt.”
“There are plenty of wardens who can do that.”
“There are,” Bershad agreed. “But you’re the closest thing the Jaguar Army has to a commander. You need to stay with the men.”
“Meaning, I need to lead the men if you all get yourselves eaten?”
“Yes.”
Willem gave a slow nod. “Yeah. All right.”
“Cabbage and I will obviously go as well,” said Felgor.
“What?” Cabbage hissed.
“You’re coming, Cabbage,” said Simeon, in a tone that made it clear the issue wasn’t up for debate. Cabbage just sighed and waved his hand in a vague gesture of both acceptance and defeat.
Everyone was quiet for a few moments.
“Seven of us isn’t enough,” said Bershad. “I’ll walk the camp and ask for volunteers.”
“No need,” said Oromir. “Me and my crew will go, too.”
“You sure?” Bershad asked.
“I don’t put stock in sorcery or dragonslayers or stacks of paper. But we need food to fight this war. So yeah, I’m sure. Twenty more men. That enough?”
“About all we should risk, I’d say.”
“Good.”
Jolan cleared his throat. “If we’re only taking twenty-seven people, how are we going to haul the food back out of the jungle once we get there?”
Another long silence.
“Am I really the one who’s gotta solve this problem for you idiots?” Kerrigan asked.
They all looked at her. She sighed.
“We’ll use the donkeys,” she said. “The ones we took down from Naga Rock. Wendell’s still looking out for them with his asshole father down south, right?”
“Yeah,” said Bershad. He wanted the boy and his father kept out of the war, and kept safe. “It’s actually on the way to the skyship.”
“Good,” said Ashlyn. “We leave in thirty minutes.”
* * *
On Cabbage’s way out of the hut, he noticed a small black dog napping in the shade of a big Daintree leaf. There were flies buzzing around his dry nose and Cabbage could see the lines of his ribs underneath his hide. Seeing that made his heart hurt.
Cabbage reached into his pocket for his final scrap of salt pork.
He knew it was stupid and softhearted to give his last bit of meat to a dog he didn’t even know. Simeon would have slapped him and told him for the thousandth time he had the wrong blood for this work. But Simeon wasn’t around and Cabbage couldn’t bear the idea of eating it himself. He walked over to the dog.
“Hey, buddy. I got something for you,” Cabbage said, taking the cloth out of his pocket.
The dog continued sleeping.
“You hungry?” Cabbage asked.
Still nothing.
“Hey. I’ve got some pork for you if you’ll wake up.”
Cabbage gave the sleeping dog the gentlest of taps with his boot. The dog responded by jumping up with a yelp and careening down the forest path at speed, howling the entire way as if Cabbage had just put a thumb up his ass instead of trying to give him a scrap of swine meat.
“What the hell?” Cabbage muttered.
“You know there’s an old Dunfarian saying about sleeping dogs,” said Kerrigan, coming up behind him and crossing her arms.
“What is it?”
“Difficult to translate. But kicking them isn’t part of it.”
“I didn’t kick him!” Cabbage said. “I was just trying to…” He tightened his hand around the scrap of pork. Kerrigan was nicer than Simeon, but that wasn’t a hard thing to be. She probably wouldn’t approve of wasted pork, either. “Never mind.”
Kerrigan shrugged. Flicked a spider off her wrist, then wandered off down the plank road.
Cabbage went after the dog.
At this point he was just being stubborn, but if Cabbage was willing to part with his pork for the good of an unknown dog, then by Aeternita the dog was gonna eat it.
He moved past a series of tree huts, searching for the dog and giving awkward waves to the people of Dampmire that he passed.
He found the dog huddled up in a tomato garden that was next to a small hut. The dog was glaring at him. When he got closer, he bared his teeth and released a low growl.
“I’m trying to feed you, you little asshole.” And by that point, he had no idea why he was still trying. But he’d gone this far and refused to give up. He took one step into the garden, bending a plant. The dog barked, and a moment later the door to the hut opened. A woman with a half-woven basket in her hand came out. Frowned.
“You bothering my dog?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“That’s my dog,” she said. “Why are you screwing with him?”
“Well, I was trying to do the opposite of that.” Cabbage held up the pork. “But for such a skinny creature he’s being awfully stubborn about a free snack.”
The woman snorted. “He ain’t nearly as starved as he looks. Little troublemaker was always skinny, even before the skyships torched all the farms. Probably because he’s willing to eat dragonshit.”
Cabbage shrugged.
The woman eyed the meat. “That pork?”
“Yeah.”
“What forest god did you fuck to get it?”
“Uh…”
“Never mind. I don’t really care. How about you make up for molesting my dog by letting me drop that in the stew I’ve got going. I haven’t had a scrap of meat in three moon turns.”
Cabbage had to admit that giving the pork to a woman made a lot more sense than forcing it up some asshole dog who was perfectly happy subsisting on dragonshit.
“Sure.”
* * *
The hut was just a one-room affair with dirt floors, a lofted sleeping area, and a cookpot situation in the middle, which was bubbling with a delicious-smelling broth. The woman took the pork, then motioned him to a wicker chair next to the cook fire.
“My name’s Jovita. What’s yours?”
“Cabbage.”
“Cabbage?” She frowned. “That a Balarian name?”
“Pirate name,” he said.
“What’s your non-pirate name, then?”
“My what?”
A strand of Jovita’s hair—which was black, but streaked with gray—fell in front of her face. She tucked it behind an ear. “Your mother didn’t name you Cabbage, did she?”
“Oh, yeah. I mean no. It’s Cabargato. An old Balarian name.”
“I think I can intuit the origin of the pirate version.”
“Yeah.”
Jovita took a knife from the wall and cut the pork into thin slices—clearly trying to make the handful of meat stretch further than it naturally would. She cut up a few gnarled roots, too, and dropped the entire balance into the pot.
“Needs to simmer for a little while,” she said.
Cabbage nodded.
“You got some nastiness going on with your ears,” she said, pointing at his face with the knife.
Cabbage touched his right ear. Came back with a blackened mush.
“Uh, they’re fake, actually,” he explained. “The queen made them for me, but the jungle wet rots them out
eventually. It’s hard to get them off, though, ’cause of the glue she used.”
The woman nodded with understanding, as if she encountered earless men with prosthetics made by a queen on a regular basis.
“I can help you get them off, if you want.”
“You’re not gonna use that, are you?” Cabbage asked, pointing at the knife.
“No.” She grabbed a roughspun cloth, then turned to a line of glass jars filled with various liquids. “A little hot water and vinegar is all we need here.”
“Vinegar,” Cabbage repeated. “Right.”
Jovita dampened the rag, then squatted and started dabbing the edges with it. The sharp smell of vinegar filled his nose.
“Um, I should warn you that what’s underneath isn’t … pleasant to look at.”
“Please. I was married to an Almiran warden for fifteen years. Scars don’t bother me.”
“Oh.” He paused. “What happened to him? Your husband.”
“He died in a skirmish against Linkon Pommol’s men last fall.”
“Sorry.”
“His crew all came to Dampmire to give me the news. They said that he died bravely, and that it was fast. Painless.”
Cabbage swallowed. Thought of all the men he’d watched die. Very few of them had done so quickly.
“I’m sure it was.”
Jovita dabbed for a while longer. Cabbage could feel the warm vinegar dripping down his neck.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She peeled away his left ear, slowing when she saw Cabbage wince, so that it didn’t hurt much. But Cabbage winced again once it was totally off, knowing that Jovita was staring at a hole in his head surrounded by rough scar tissue.
“Sorry,” he said. “I know it’s—”
“Stow the apologies,” Jovita said, moving to his left ear and beginning to dab.
She peeled his left ear off without incident. Held the two appendages in her palm, studying them.
“The witch queen really made these?”
“Yes.”
“They look so real. I suppose it makes sense they’re sorcery-forged.”
“She’s told me on a number of occasions that there’s no such thing as sorcery, but some of the things that I have seen her do … there’s no other explanation.”
“Do you want to keep them?” Jovita asked.
“No, it’s okay.”
She threw them in the fire. “Well, that’s done.”
Cabbage hesitated. “Not quite, actually.”
Jovita turned to him, a question in her eyes. But then she studied his face a little closer. His cheeks.
“Oh. Of course. I can do those, too.”
“Might as well.”
Jovita squatted in front of him this time, her brown eyes focused on his face as she started rubbing off the layer that hid his blue bars.
She didn’t speak for a while. When she was halfway through removing the second bar, Cabbage couldn’t take it anymore.
“Do you want to know how I got them?”
“Not really. Do you want to tell me?”
It had been a long time since Cabbage had told anyone how he got the bars. Up in the Proving Ground, where everyone had bars, nobody really cared.
“Afraid if I tell you, I’ll miss out on the stew.”
Jovita smiled. “Save it then. Because the stew’s ready.”
Cabbage served himself, and made a point to ensure only one thin slice of pork made its way into his bowl. He took slow sips, savoring the flavor, which was plain but rich. Lots of roots and a little onion.
“It’s better with corn,” Jovita said, taking a spoonful. “And salt. Gods, I would murder someone for a pinch of salt.”
“Maybe I can bring some back for you, if we come through this way again.”
Jovita gave him a look. “Would you kill someone for it?”
Cabbage cocked his head. Wasn’t sure what to say. “Being honest, I’ve killed men for less.”
“That so?” Jovita said, dipping her bowl back into the pot. Picking out a pork slice and taking a bite. “Because despite a pretty screwed-up face, you seem a little softhearted to me, trying to feed extra scraps to my dog and all.”
Cabbage finished the last sip of his stew. “My boss is the one who wears the dragon-bone armor,” he said, staring at the dregs in the bottom of the bowl. “Do you know him?”
“Everyone in the Dainwood knows Simeon the Skojit by now.”
“Yeah. I guess he stands out.” Cabbage swallowed. “He likes to tell me that I’ve got the wrong blood for this kind of work. I took offense to it at first, especially seeing as offense is what was intended. But lately, I’m starting to think he’s right, and that it’s a good thing. Not being right for this life. Problem is, just because a set of boots don’t fit doesn’t mean a replacement’s readily available.”
“Dunno about boots, but it seems to me you could use your feet to walk away from this war anytime.”
“No.” Cabbage shook his head.
He thought of Ashlyn and Silas and the Jaguar wardens. They were all fighting this war with such conviction. Even Felgor, in his own way. He joked around constantly, but the things they’d done in Floodhaven had been incredibly dangerous.
“The people fighting in this war are my friends,” Cabbage said. “I can’t abandon them.”
He might not have felt the same courage as the others, but he could help them. That was one thing he could do. And when it was done, maybe that would form some kind of penance for all the years of murder and mayhem he’d wrought from Ghost Moth Island.
“Well, seeing as how a dog you’ve never met turned your heart to mush, I can see where the whole war camaraderie thing would have deep hooks in you,” Jovita said.
Cabbage opened his mouth to say something else, but was stopped by the thump of heavy boots outside as wardens moved past Jovita’s hut. They were muttering about orders and locations and skyship drops.
“I need to be moving,” he said, standing up.
“Yeah,” Jovita agreed. She lifted her bowl. “Thanks for the stew, Cabbage.”
He nodded. “I’ll keep an eye out for some salt. And if we come through this way again, I’ll make sure you get some.”
Jovita smiled, but sadly. Cabbage could read on her face that she was figuring the odds she’d ever see him again, and coming up with narrow figures.
“Well, you know where to find me.”
9
CASTOR
Castle Malgrave, Level 62
“You seem nervous, Castor,” said Commander Vergun, as they made their way toward the upper chambers of the King’s Tower.
“No, Commander. Just a little tired of these meetings, is all.”
Castor figured that—all in—he’d spent about half his waking life split between training for a fight and standing around in different rooms doing nothing. The charming and glorious existence of a Horellian guard turned mercenary.
There was, of course, that little sliver of actual combat, which had widened considerably since Castor had left the Horellians and started working for Commander Vergun. Some Wormwrot men loved the thrill of a battle even more than the coin they were paid for it, but Castor never understood the emotional fixation men had with mercenary work. It was just a trade, like any other. Glorifying it to such an extreme seemed to Castor like a blacksmith who pounded out steel all day with a throbbing erection threatening to burst through his pants.
It was unprofessional, and it interfered with the work.
“You would prefer to be back in the jungle, where any tree could be a warden in disguise, waiting to gut you?”
Castor shrugged. “I understand the jungle, and I understand ambushes. The shit that goes on in this castle makes no fucking sense.”
They reached the large chamber where the meeting was to take place and went inside. Castor’s mouth went dry at the sight of the interior.
Hundreds of vivisected insects and rodents were splayed
out inside glass cases that ringed the walls. Their organs and nervous systems pinned in odd, whirling patterns. An autonomous spider made from copper and gold clacked around the room, hunting roaches and rats that Ward had deliberately released across the upper levels. He said that the hunt helped Bartholomew—the only one of his creations with a normal name—hone his coordination. It also led to the secondary creation of little piles of gnawed rat bones in most corners.
Castor had worked for unsettling men. And he had seen his share of unsettling things. Vallen Vergun was known for keeping impaled enemies in his tent, which was made from human skin. That was horrific, but it served a purpose: intimidating the living shit out of everyone in Taggarstan.
Castor wasn’t sure what the point of a metallic, rat-hunting spider was, especially when Ward had all the intimidation he needed standing in each corner.
The four war acolytes in the room each had ram horns implanted into their skulls. Their breath was ragged and their gaze unknowable.
The Wormwrot grunts often lamented their frustration with taking orders from a skinny—and very likely insane—old man. They wondered why Vergun didn’t just kill him, and take the armada of skyships for themselves. Truth was, it had been considered and even tried by a few ambitious captains, early in the war. They’d been torn to shreds for their trouble. So, Castor always told his men the same thing when they seemed to be getting ambitious, too.
Soon as you come up with a way to cut through four of his acolytes, you’re welcome to take the whole empire for yourself. Till then, shut up and do your job.
Castor followed Vergun into the room. The air smelled like burning hair and melting rubber.
“Ah, our illustrious Wormwrot officers have finally arrived,” said Osyrus Ward from his place at a large rectangular table, which was littered with bloody tools and dragon bones. “You’re the last ones.”
The rest of his council was a strange mixture of people. There were Ward’s engineers—ten soft-palmed men with soot-coated cheeks who wore the same kind of white dragonskin jacket as Ward. Osyrus seemed to have collected that lot from the kilns, factories, and workshops of Balaria, then charmed them into service with the wonders of his inventions. They were murmuring to themselves and going over a complicated set of charts, pointing to various areas with clear frustration.
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