“I can give it a whirl on my own,” Bershad offered.
“No. You’re a shitty negotiator to begin with, and it sounds like he hates you. We’ll do it together.”
Vera chewed on that. “I’m willing to try.”
“Good,” said Ashlyn.
“Felgor, best you wait here,” said Bershad.
“Could not agree more,” said Felgor.
“Oh, and Vera?” Bershad said. “Best keep the fact that she’s the deposed witch queen of Almira between us, yeah?”
Vera nodded. “Decimar!” she called.
“Here,” he called back. “Everything okay?”
“I’m coming back out with some visitors. Keep your arrows in their quivers. We’re going to have a little chat.”
“Acknowledged.”
Vera started picking her way back to the crashed skyship.
20
CABBAGE
Crash Site of the Eternity
Cabbage realized far too late that the mud he’d rubbed across Simeon’s armor was mostly dragonshit. Now he was stuck trailing the stinking Skojit as they crawled along the rut on their bellies.
When they were about halfway to the skyship, a woman shouted from the jungle.
“Decimar!”
Cabbage was so startled and sure they’d been spotted, he didn’t really catch much of what was said after that, but when a few moments passed and he didn’t have an arrow through his face, Cabbage calmed down and tried to figure out what was going on.
The widow came out of the jungle, followed by Bershad and Ashlyn. No arrows were loosed at them.
They lost sight of the trio as they got closer to the skyship crash, so Oromir gave a little signal and they kept crawling. Now that the longbowmen’s attention was elsewhere, Oromir began to move faster, and they reached the lip of the rut a few minutes later. Oromir and Cabbage crawled up to scout.
“What’re they doing?” Simeon asked.
“Talking,” said Cabbage.
“Talking?”
“Yeah. They’re all clumped together.”
“Huh.” Simeon spat. “Any Ghalamarians?”
Cabbage now had a clear view into the crash. There were actually twelve men in Ghalamarian armor—two of whom wore officer’s plumes. Simeon hated officers the most.
“Uh, I can’t quite tell.”
Oromir flashed him a look, but didn’t contradict the lie. Instead, he raised his lens and began scanning the ship. From here, they had a good angle on the exposed upper levels. There was a man hiding in the shadows. And he did have a rope coiled on his hip.
“That’s him,” Oromir whispered.
“Who?” Cabbage asked.
“Garret the Hangman. And I am going to kill him in the next five minutes.”
Oromir hopped down and moved close to Simeon.
“Cabbage is lying to you, there are ten Ghalamarian regulars and two officers in that skyship.”
Simeon’s face darkened even more than before, which Cabbage hadn’t thought was possible.
“What does the sigil on their shoulders look like?” he asked.
“A sun rising over some waves.”
“Argel,” Simeon whispered. “I fucking hate Argellians.”
“One of them is wearing a count’s plume.”
Simeon smiled. “Oh, I am going to ruin his day.”
He moved to charge, but Oromir stopped him with a strong hand.
“Wait. There’s a man on the upper levels. You’ll draw him to the ground so I can kill him. I kill him. Not you.”
“Why’s that important?”
“I got my reasons. And they’re far better than the ones you got for killing Ghalamarians you’ve never met.” He pulled Simeon close. “Garret is mine. Clear?”
Simeon smiled. “We’re clear, Almiran. How do you wanna get it done?”
Oromir started drawing a quick map in the mud at their feet. “The officer is here. If you come up from the right, you’ll have a decent angle on him.…”
Oromir kept talking. Cabbage felt his cock shrivel, way it always did before a fight.
21
ASHLYN
Crash Site of the Eternity
“Who the fuck are you two?” Count Garwin asked Ashlyn as they approached. For now, the Ghalamarians had their weapons sheathed, but their hands were all gripped around the hilts and she saw a lot of white knuckles.
“Emissaries from the Jaguar Army,” Ashlyn said. “We’re here to negotiate.”
“The Jaguar Army sends lots of emissaries deep into dragon-infested jungle looking for negotiating opportunities, do they?”
“They do when there is a crashed skyship full of provisions added to the equation.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m a little hazy on why that Papyrian cunt allowed two so-called emissaries to tromp into my perimeter,” Garwin growled. “But so long as you both fuck off back to your jungle in the next minute, you can keep your lives.”
“Can’t recommend referring to a widow that way,” said Bershad. “They kill for less.”
Garwin’s eyes moved to Bershad. It took a moment for him to recognize Silas, but when he did, his eyes widened and his face reddened. “You. Fucking. Asshole.”
“Guess we’re skipping the pleasantries entirely this time?” Bershad asked.
“You destroyed my city.”
“No, that Red Skull destroyed your city. And I’ve got a bit of a grudge myself. You sold me out to the Balarian emperor after we left Argel. Pretty shitty thing to do.”
“And yet Mercer is long gone down the river, while you’re alive and well and wreaking havoc through this forsaken jungle. How’d that come to pass?”
“Just lucky I guess.” Bershad spat. “Anyway, looks like we both showed up here with the goal of getting ourselves fed. How about we split it?”
“Why would I do that instead of just killing you and your bitch?”
“Because we’ve got five thousand wardens hiding in the trees,” Bershad said. “You’re totally surrounded.”
“And you’re so full of dragonshit I can smell it on your breath.”
“Signal your men to attack. See what happens.”
“I know what would happen. You’d die.”
“That’s unlikely.”
“Can you both put your dicks away for moment?” Ashlyn asked. “We came down here to avoid a fight, not rekindle a stupid one between the two of you.”
Garwin shifted his gaze to her. “I don’t know how many of your rabble are out there, but if you had enough to launch an attack you would have done it already. I have no reason to compromise with savages.”
“Sure you do,” said Ashlyn. “Because we savages know where every single dragon warren in the Dainwood is located. I would imagine that Osyrus Ward doesn’t really care about this food, nor does he care much about you, if he attached you to the group that flew through a horde of Blackjacks to get it. But what if you came back with ten fresh warren locations? That’s a man who would be put in good favor, I think.”
Garwin didn’t say anything, but she could tell he was interested.
“And a man in Osyrus Ward’s good favor is a man who lives a long time,” Ashlyn added. “He’d probably be allowed to return to his seat of governance. Enjoy the rest of this war from a comfortable and fortified tower.”
Garwin licked his lips. Glanced at one of his men, who was wearing a lieutenant’s plume. “The Madman is always looking for more warrens, that’s a fact,” the lieutenant said, eyes sliding to Ashlyn. “Dunno what this mud-haired woman’s word is worth, though.”
“Neither do I,” said Garwin. He appraised Ashlyn for a few more moments. “All right, emissary. Here’s what we’ll do. Real slow, you’re going to draw the locations in the dirt at your feet. Then my men are going to confirm those locations with our charts. Then you can have your split of the food.”
Ashlyn pretended to weigh the offer. It wouldn’t matter either way—there was no way that the Balarian charts could confir
m or deny warren locations, so she planned on giving them a set of difficult-to-reach and useless places to check.
“Half the locations now. Half when all of your men are back in the skyship, and half the food remains on the ground.”
“We’re just halving shit all over the place, aren’t we?” Garwin said. But his face was already changing to the expression Ashlyn wanted to see. “Okay, you have a deal. Start marking locations with that finger of yours so we can all get out of this place before—”
“Ghalamarian swine! Get ready to fuck off down the river!”
Ashlyn turned to see Simeon charging. His armor was coated in a mixture of mud and shit.
She cursed. Crouched. And flexed the muscles of her forearm.
Her bands began to spin.
22
CABBAGE
Crash Site of the Eternity
Cabbage watched the attack unfold through his lens.
Seven archers loosed rounds at Simeon as he crossed the gap between their crater and the parley. All the arrows connected, but only two punched through his armor. Thigh and shoulder, looked like. Not nearly enough to stop Simeon when he had all that heat and hate roiling through his blood. He rushed past Ashlyn and Bershad. Punched the Argellian lord in the face, which sent his teeth spraying out the back of his skull.
“Shit,” Cabbage muttered. “I’m gonna get yelled at for letting this happen.”
Cabbage assumed the usual murder and mayhem would follow, but before Simeon could cause much more destruction, a hemp rope dropped down from an upper tier of the broken skyship and tightened around his neck. Garret dropped down, and Simeon was yanked out of sight.
Garret strained against Simeon’s weight, both hands wrapped tight around the hemp rope. Oromir flashed out of the undergrowth, sword drawn, heading directly for him.
Given everyone else’s focus on Simeon’s lynching, he’d have had no problem running his sword through the man’s back. But at the very last moment, the Papyrian widow’s attention shifted, and she threw the scabbard of her sword at Oromir, striking him on the temple and knocking him unconscious.
“Kill them all!” the Ghalamarian lieutenant screamed.
As the archers drew their bows, Bershad sprinted to Oromir and threw his own body over the warden, shielding him from the volley that came a heartbeat later and taking five arrows in his back.
Ashlyn raised her left arm high over her head and made a fist. The bands on her arm spun with furious movement. When the archers loosed their arrows at her, she snapped her fist toward the ground. The arrows seemed to accept the movement as ironclad directions—each of them smacked harmlessly into the mud at her feet.
While the archers nocked a fresh volley, Simeon tore the noose off his neck and dropped to the ground with a loud thump, which sent Garret stumbling backward. The archers fired the entirety of their next volley at Simeon, but he shifted and shimmied like a dancer, causing a bunch of glancing shots.
“Gonna need more than some string and arrows to kill me,” he growled, then charged the nearest Ghalamarian.
Ashlyn swept her left arm sideways and Simeon was launched into the air like a coyote who’d just been kicked by a donkey. He landed near Cabbage with a thump and crash.
Ashlyn’s bands spun to life again. Five metal orbs the size of apples flew out of the pack she kept on her hip, zipping through the air and stopping directly in front of the faces of the nearest Ghalamarian soldiers.
“Enough!” Ashlyn shouted. “If everyone else stops, everyone else lives. Keep fighting, and I start hollowing skulls.”
The Ghalamarian lieutenant didn’t have an orb in front of his face, but his mouth twitched as he looked around at the men who did.
“She’s bluffing!” he blurted. “It’s a trick. Attack them on my—”
A single band on Ashlyn’s arm blurred with speed, creating a high-pitched whine. One of the orbs zipped through the air, punched into the side of the lieutenant’s skull, and then returned to the exact same place it had been hovering, just with a smear of blood and scrap of bone shard on it. The lieutenant collapsed.
“I am not bluffing, and another volley of arrows won’t do anything besides make me angry.”
She motioned to the heap of arrows at her feet.
“But I don’t want to end any more lives today. Drop your weapons and get out of my sight.”
23
VERA
Crash Site of the Eternity
“Do as she says,” said Vera.
For a bunch of professional soldiers, the men dropped their weapons awfully fast.
Vera remained outside while everyone else moved back to the Sparrow. Garret was the last to leave, and had a strange look on his face, but he eventually followed the others.
Bershad remained still as a corpse while the men withdrew, but as soon as Garret disappeared into the Blue Sparrow, he stirred, then stood with a curse on a groan. He looked uncomfortable, but more like a man who’d fallen off a high ladder than someone who’d been shot with five longbow arrows.
A teenage boy had picked his way down from the hills while everyone was getting their bearings. He wasn’t wearing any armor, but was carrying a large backpack. He moved to help the unconscious warden, bending down and checking his pulse. He produced a glass vial from his kit, shook it a few times, then held it beneath the warden’s nose.
His eyes snapped open, and the warden shot up. Eyes searching.
“Where’s Garret?” he hissed.
Vera was surprised he knew the name, but realized she shouldn’t have been. Men don’t generally charge a group of well-positioned archers to kill a stranger.
“Garret was here?” the boy asked, voice strained and suddenly full of anger, too.
“He’s gone now, and you’re an asshole,” Bershad said, walking over to Oromir. “I told you to wait in the fucking jungle.”
“That man was mine to kill.”
“No, he wasn’t. You screwed this whole thing up.”
The two of them glared at each other for a few moments, and Vera wondered if they were going to try and kill each other now. But Bershad softened, then turned around, showing his arrow-ridden back to the warden.
“Pull those out and we’ll call it square.”
The warden ripped the arrows from Bershad’s back with all the gentleness of a gardener pulling stubborn weeds. He dropped the arrows. Spat. Then stalked off into the jungle.
“What’s his problem?” Vera asked.
“Oh, he’s got a collection of them,” said Bershad, rubbing his back as he came over to them. He smiled at Ashlyn. “So, who’s a shitty negotiator now?”
“I had Garwin convinced,” Ashlyn responded. “Simeon and Oromir are the ones who spoiled it.”
“Yeah.” Bershad squinted at the remnants of Garwin’s skull, then out into the field where the big Skojit had flown. There was a man who appeared to have no ears crouched over him.
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Bershad asked.
“He’ll be fine. Jolan, go over and make sure none of those arrow wounds are problematic.”
“On it,” the boy said, trotting away.
Ashlyn had kept those gray orbs hovering around her head in a loose orbit, but now that they were alone, the bands on her fingers increased their speed, and the orbs flowed back into her satchel like ducks following their mother into the water.
Vera watched them, transfixed.
“It isn’t sorcery,” Ashlyn said. “It’s a combination of—”
“Queen, I’ve spent the last year surrounded by Osyrus Ward’s machines and experiments. I might not understand exactly how you’re doing that, but I recognize the general method. There’s no need to explain.”
“Fair enough,” said Ashlyn. She licked her lips, appearing very thirsty. “Is my sister alive? All of the rumors we hear are different.”
“Yes. But her spine was completely severed during an assassination attempt last winter. She cannot breathe without the aid of Osyru
s Ward’s machines. And without his continued help, she’ll die.”
“That’s why you’re helping him?” Bershad asked.
“That’s right.”
Vera looked at Silas a long time, waiting for him to challenge her. But instead, his face softened.
“I understand, Vera.” He gave a grim smile. “Looks like we’re both still out here in the wilderness, doing work for the Malgraves, yeah?”
She smiled back. “Looks like it.”
There was a silence. In the distance, a dragon bellowed out a long screech.
“You two had sex, didn’t you?” Ashlyn asked.
Vera’s mouth dropped open. “Um. We. I.”
“Don’t bother denying it, Vera. I’ve known Silas a long time, and that particular smile of his only gets conjured from one thing. Well, the memory of one thing, anyway.”
Ashlyn looked between them again, waiting for an answer.
“Well? Let’s have it.”
There was simply no way Vera was going to answer that question.
Bershad sighed. “Yeah. Up in the Razorbacks.”
Ashlyn kept a stern face for a long moment, then broke into a smile of her own. “Black skies, you always did have a thing for screwing in the woods. I hope you made him bathe first, at least?” she asked Vera.
“I did, actually.”
“Good.” She paused. “It surprises you, how gentle he is. Yes?”
“Yes,” Vera said.
“Okay,” said Bershad, “I think we’ve covered all the necessary ground on this front.”
“Now he’s embarrassed,” Ashlyn said. “I don’t have much sympathy for you, though.”
Vera did her best to tamp down the embarrassment she felt, too. She didn’t have much success.
“Wait,” said Ashlyn. “Osyrus’s machines might be able to breathe for a person—and I know that he’s an advanced healer—but how did Kira survive those injuries in the first place? She should be dead.”
“That’s the other thing that you need to know.” Vera took a breath. Tried to think of the best way to explain. “Kira has carried the Malgrave name all of her life, but it doesn’t belong to her. Not completely.”
Fury of a Demon Page 18
