Bloody Rose

by Nicholas Eames

  “And if we win?” Tam wondered. “What’ll happen to the ones who fight with us?”

  The booker sucked a long drag off his pipe. “They’ll have to try and get along with humans, same as I did.” He exhaled smoke through a sardonic smile. “You’re not all assholes, you know.”

  “Just most of us?”

  “Just most of you,” he said amiably, then nodded to the corpse of a firbolg before them. “Now let’s burn this prick and get back to the pub.”

  The mood that night was sombre. The weather took a turn for the worse, and Rose had mercenaries working in shifts to shovel snow and keep the streets clear. While she and Slowhand pored over an expansive map of the city, Tam and her bandmates returned to the Monster Market and doled out bowls of hot stew to the creatures captive there.

  The gesture was, for the most part, greatly appreciated—except by a minotaur who stared at his helping in open disgust. “What is this, beef? I can’t eat this! Have you got a salad or something?”

  “No, I haven’t got a fucking salad,” said Roderick.

  The minotaur stared flatly between the bars of his cage. “Be a lot cooler if you did.”

  When they returned to the Starwood, Rose ordered them to their rooms. “Get some rest,” she said. “Or try to.” Before Cura took off, Rose stopped her and jutted her chin at the summoner’s latest tattoo. “Do we need to talk about that?”

  The Inkwitch matched gazes with Rose. “Do you need to talk about it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then we’re good,” said Cura.

  “Good.”

  Upstairs, Tam and the Inkwitch found themselves once again relegated to the same room. There was a bed against either wall, so Tam stood by the door and waited for the other woman to pick which of them belonged to her.

  Cura promptly chose the one on the right. She dragged the blankets and the sheets off and bundled them all together, then crossed to the room’s only window, pushed open the casement, and hurled the whole bundle into the alley outside.

  She turned to face Tam, her black hair tossing in the cold breeze, and stared down Fable’s former bard as if daring her to speak.

  “I guess we’ll have to share a bed,” Tam said.

  Cura replied with an impish smile, “I guess so.”

  Tam awoke before dawn to find Cura sitting on the edge of the bed. Torchlight beyond the frosted window picked out the treant tattooed on her back, the flaming wreath of Agani traced in scar tissue and shadowed ink. Tam reached out to touch it and the summoner flinched, but didn’t move away.

  “Did I wake you?” asked Cura.

  “No. Did you sleep at all?”

  “A little. Not much.” She looked over her shoulder. “Listen, Tam, this was …”

  “Oh, gods,” Tam groaned, “you’re not going to give me another knife, are you?”

  Cura laughed quietly. “Not this time, sorry.” She turned and traced the line of Tam’s cheek with her fingers. “This was perfect. Thank you. I couldn’t have asked for a better last night.”

  The word last barged into Tam’s mind before perfect had a chance to settle in. “You don’t think we’ll survive this?” she asked.

  “You might.”

  “All of us might.”

  Cura withdrew her hand. “Battles don’t work like that, Tam. Especially not with the odds we’re facing. Some of us—most of us, probably—will need to sacrifice everything so the rest have a chance to survive.”

  “I know that,” said Tam. “That doesn’t mean it has to be you.”

  Cura’s voice was pained. “If not me, who?”

  There were voices in the street. Frantic shouting outside their window. The sound of doors banging open, footsteps pounding down the hall. Light, at last, crept through the window and painted the ceiling in shades of muted fire.

  Dawn had arrived. And with it, the Horde.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  The Beginning of the End

  Tam was standing with Cura, Brune, and Roderick outside the Sanctuary on the city’s southern hill. From here she could see more than she might have wished of the land surrounding Conthas. Astra’s Horde was ranged northeast of the city: a teeming, crawling, shuffling eyesore of awful shit.

  Her mind unhelpfully picked out a few recognizable monsters among the masses. Brontide was easy enough to spot, since he was leading the way and carrying the ram’s-head maul she’d overheard the other mercenaries refer to as WHAM. The giant’s flesh had turned a pallid blue, while his long hair and beard had gone the yellow-white of curdled milk. His head sagged sideways because the Simurg had savaged his throat so terribly.

  According to Moog, killing the undead required burning them, decapitating them, or destroying the rotten organ that passed for their brain.

  If only the Dragoneater had bit a little harder, Tam mused, we wouldn’t have a rampaging giant to deal with.

  “What about skeletons?” Cura had pressed the wizard. “They don’t have brains.”

  “Raising skeletons isn’t necromancy,” the wizard insisted. “It’s puppetry. And I’d suggest avoiding those who practice either.”

  The Horde also boasted a great many things that resembled giants but weren’t, like two-headed ettins, humpbacked fomorians, and rock hulks whose long, stone-riddled arms dragged furrows in the mud. Tam even recognized a cyclops here and there, though none as monstrous as the one Fable had fought back in the Ravine.

  Other obvious horrors included giant spiders, slithering drakes, furless firewolves, and shaggy mammoths whose tusks were stained black with gore. She saw a gelatinous blob covered with bloodshot eyes, an impossibly huge tortoise with what looked like a small castle teetering on its back, and the four-headed hydrake she’d stepped over on the battlefield just days ago.

  Around these, in numbers beyond counting, were what Roderick blithely referred to as the “meat and potatoes” of the Horde: orcs, imps, goblins, trolls, ogres, ixil, and rat-faced kobolds. There were packs of loping wargs, herds of limping centaurs, knots of hooded snake-men, and scuttling colonies of horse-sized insects—alongside hundreds of other creatures she didn’t know and couldn’t name.

  What made Astra’s host truly frightening (aside from their burning eyes, putrid flesh, and their eclectic variety of grievous injuries) was their silence. In life, they would have snarled, screeched, roared, and hissed as they closed on the city. But in death they were voiceless, vacuous husks—a dreadful reminder of what awaited every soul in Conthas should they fail to stop the Horde here and now.

  “Gee,” said Cura dryly. “I wonder where Astra’s hiding out.”

  Further study of the approaching host revealed that Astra wasn’t hiding at all, unless the tented palanquin borne by a half a dozen gargantuan firbolgs (each of which looked like a miniature Brontide with a horn instead of a proper nose) belonged to someone other than the Winter Queen—but Tam guessed probably not.

  “Oh shit,” Roderick swore. Tam followed the booker’s bleak gaze and saw another army approaching from the west. This one, so far as she could see through the haze of blowing snow, was made up entirely of humans. These were the mercenaries who had died during the battle at Grey Vale, or been caught by surprise when Astra had raised the dead in its aftermath. And out front, garbed in the green-and-gold panoply of Queen Lilith of Brycliffe, were—

  “The fucking Agrians,” Brune growled.

  Tam’s heart, already quaking in fear, went in search of a corner to cry in. Not only did Lokan rob us of ten thousand soldiers, she thought miserably, he handed them to the Winter Queen on a silver platter.

  Astra’s fliers weren’t here yet, but Tam assumed they would arrive soon, cinching around the city like a hangman’s noose. The Simurg, thankfully, was nowhere in sight.

  Rose came striding from the compound gate with Branigan, Jain, Slowhand, and Moog in tow. Fable’s leader had traded her battered scrap armour for a black leather cuirass and sleek steel sabatons. She wore a bright scarlet cloak over one shou
lder with the cowl drawn to hide her face.

  Jain sauntered up to Tam and offered her a pair of gloves made of rough grey wool with worn leather pads sewn onto the palms. Two fingers on the right-handed glove—the ones she would use to draw an arrow—were cut away. “Here,” she said. “I made these for you.”

  Tam looked up, amazed. “You made these?”

  The older woman tossed a loose-knit braid over one shoulder. “Basically, yeah.”

  “So you stole them …”

  “It ain’t stealin’ if they’re dead,” Jain said matter-of-factly. “Anyway, I did the snipping myself.”

  Tam decided to pretend Jain was kidding about the gloves belonging to a corpse. She resisted the urge to smell one and instead pulled them on, wriggling her bare fingers. “Thank you.”

  Beside them, Roderick was swimming in an oversized chainmail coat and holding a spear upside down. He used the butt end to draw Rose’s attention to the crawling wall of green-and-gold shields out west. “Astra’s got us over a pickle barrel now,” he informed her. “How is this plan supposed to work if we’re fighting on two fronts?”

  “It doesn’t,” said Rose. “We’ll need to deal with them quickly. Or at least hold them off until we can lure Astra into the city.”

  Tam’s uncle cleared his throat. “I hate to be the voice of reason here—hell, I’m not sure I’ve ever been the voice of reason before—but there’s gotta be twenty thousand of them over there.”

  “Thirty,” said Jain. “Check your eyes, old man.”

  “Thirty, then. Either way, dealing with them quickly probably isn’t an option.”

  “But holding them off is,” said Slowhand. “How many mercs are in your company?”

  “The Rusted Blades?” Bran shrugged. “Fifteen thousand, give or take.”

  Clay turned to Rose. “Can you spare them?”

  “I’ll have to,” she said. “But can you hold them off with so few?”

  Slowhand’s eyes flickered to his daughter, Tally, who was leading Heartbreaker through the chapel gate. “I’ll hold them,” he promised.

  “We’ll hold them,” said Moog.

  Satisfied, Rose turned to Jain. “I need you to get a message to the Han: Once his riders are done harassing the Horde, they’re to circle the city and help relieve the Rusted Blades at the Wyldside Gate.”

  “The Han’s a stubborn old sot,” said Jain. “What if he says no?”

  Rose took her stallion’s reins with a nod for Slowhand’s daughter. “You think a Cartean han will pass up the chance to kill ten thousand Agrians without diplomatic repercussions?”

  The other woman laughed. “Fair enough. I’ll get Daon to give me a lift.”

  Roderick spat on the ground. “You mean Doshi? Assuming he hasn’t made a run for it, that is.”

  “Run?” Jain grinned. “That man’s lucky he can walk after what I did to him last night.”

  “Just make sure you deliver the message,” Rose said.

  “Will do.” Jain waved and jogged off downhill.

  Finally, Rose turned to her bandmates. “All set?”

  “Ready to roll,” Brune said.

  Cura cracked her knuckles. “Let’s do this.”

  Tam only nodded, wishing she’d thought of something suitably cool to say.

  “Listen,” muttered Roderick, “if things don’t … I mean, if you guys—” He clamped his teeth shut on something close to a sob. “It’s been an honour, truly. Thanks for letting this old goat tag along, eh? And for”—he reached to thumb the stub of his broken horn—“for letting me be me.”

  Rose pulled the satyr into a hard embrace. Cura hugged them both, so Tam hugged Cura, and Brune threw his great big arms around all of them at once.

  Someone sniffed. Someone chuckled. Tam closed her eyes, overcome by the sense of having woken in the grey watch before sunrise and wishing each second could last an eternity. But it doesn’t. It can’t, of course. The sun always rises.

  They were halfway down the hill when the battle that would decide the fate of every soul in Grandual began in earnest.

  The Carteans had divided their riders into units of five hundred, called Wings, the first of which hit the Horde in a wedge of bristling lances and threshing hooves. While the first Wing retreated, the second arrived, followed by the third, the fourth, and so on, until finally Astra was forced to commit her swiftest thralls to pursue them.

  The Carteans peeled off, trailed by a funnelling mob of centaurs, wargs, trollhounds, and countless other loping atrocities. As they did, Tam saw one of the riders pull off their helmet to reveal a shock of bright red hair. She guessed by the figure’s armour and their piebald pony that it was actually Kurin, but the Winter Queen couldn’t know that—not unless one of her minions was close enough that she could see through its eyes.

  Astra had known Rose by reputation before hiring her to kill the Dragoneater, and she’d seen that reputation earned at Mirrormere, when Rose had slain the Simurg almost single-handedly. She would know by now that Gabriel’s daughter was in charge of defending Conthas, and would seize any opportunity she could to deliver a mortal blow to the city’s already tenuous morale.

  Rose’s plan hinged on Astra being as determined to kill Rose as she was to kill Astra. With half the Horde chasing down a decoy, the Winter Queen would have no choice but to commit herself to a direct attack on the city.

  And so far, it appeared to be working. Tens of thousands took off after the Han’s horsemen, who were showering their pursuers with bowfire as they skirted the north half of the curtain wall.

  Rose, guiding Heartbreaker at a trot, led her band east along the Gutter. The city’s broad thoroughfare was empty now but for a few watchful urchins (agents of the local barons), and Tam couldn’t help but think how much nicer the city seemed without an excess of people selling shit, stealing shit, or stomping through shit on their way from one tavern to the next.

  Despite its name, the East Gutter Gate wasn’t technically a gate—just a great big hole in the city’s inner wall. Broken hinges suggested there had once been a pair of massive doors, but they had long since rotted away.

  They came to the Monster Market, where the creatures who’d volunteered to fight were being kept under guard. Their cages were arranged in a half circle facing east and would be opened shortly after the Horde breached the outer wall, buying time for the fleeing mercenaries to retreat and rally beyond the second wall. It wasn’t an ideal scenario for the captive monsters, but she supposed a fighting chance was better than dying in cages when Astra took the city.

  “There goes Mackie,” Cura shouted, as another Rose revealed herself on a postern tower to the south. Flashbang’s frontwoman drew back her hood to reveal newly cropped and freshly dyed red hair. She usually fought with a whip named Darkest Hour that could (according to the songs) turn a wraith’s heart to ice, or reduce a skeleton to powder with a single snap, but just now she raised two scimitars in open defiance of the approaching host.

  But would Astra fall for it? She’d already sent her swiftest thralls after Kurin and his riders—would she strike out at this second false Rose as well?

  Apparently yes, since Brontide kicked the postern apart like it was made of sand. Through the snow and the showering dust, Tam saw Mackie sprinting south along the curtain wall. Her own company of fifteen thousand were stationed among the mills and warehouses of the outer city. Their task was to lure a portion of Astra’s forces away from the centre and delay them as long as possible.

  Rose was gazing east. Heartbreaker snorted restlessly beneath her, a symptom of his rider’s anxious energy. “We could end it now,” she murmured.

  Brune and Cura exchanged nervous glances.

  “Say what?” asked the shaman.

  “We could try and kill Astra before the Horde destroys the city. Before her fliers arrive, or the Simurg …” She blinked to dispel the devastation in her mind’s eye. “We could spare so many lives.”

  Cura scoffed. “By throwing
away our own, you mean? We lure her in and spring the ambush, Rose. That’s the plan. Going out there is suicide.”

  “I know that,” said Rose. “But so does Astra. She’ll expect us to hide behind our walls.”

  “That’s what walls are for!” Cura pointed out. “Hiding behind!”

  Brune tugged at his scarf. “Just so we’re clear, are you proposing we toss our meticulously devised strategy out the window?”

  “I am, yes.”

  “And suggesting instead that we attempt a blatantly foolish, totally reckless charge into the heart of the Winter Queen’s army?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sort of a ‘cut the snake’s head off before it swallows us whole’ sort of deal?”

  “Exactly.”

  Brune shrugged. “I like it.”

  Cura bit back a probably scathing rebuke of Rose’s ridiculous amendment to an already feeble plan and threw her hands up. “Fuck it, I’m in.”

  All three of them looked to Tam, who’d been waiting for this moment since flubbing her response on the hilltop earlier. “Who wants to live forever?” she asked.

  Rose’s answering grin was beautiful in the way an assassin’s dagger was beautiful.

  “Are we taking one of the companies with us, at least?” Cura asked. “I mean, I know we’re good—but we’re not that good.”

  Rose shook her head. “If we fuck this up, the others still have a chance of pulling this off.”

  The summoner’s derisive snort suggested she didn’t think much of the city’s chances of winning this contest once Fable was playing for the other team.

  Rose nudged her mount in the ribs and cantered over to the man in charge of setting the monsters loose. “Let them out!” she ordered.

  The man—a Heartwyld huntsmen, Tam guessed—took a long drag from his pipe before answering. “I’m not to open the cages till Bloody Rose tells me to.”

  Rose kept her hood drawn, but pushed back her cloak to reveal the scimitars strapped to her hip. “I am Bloody Rose,” she said. “And I’m telling you to.”