She hesitated a beat longer, then nodded, and some of that panic had gone out of her eyes, the desperation out of her smile. “Oh, Sullen…”
“Yeah?”
“I think you just said more than you have in the whole time I’ve known you.” Then she laughed and, though the sound was small and fragile as a wee bird, it felt like he’d caught the biggest game on the Savannahs, because he knew he’d got through to her. They sat down on the icy log and smoked, and he wriggled his arm under her scratchy blue cape and around her shoulder as she sung him everything that was nibbling at her. Or so it seemed, anyway; given how long she spoke, he couldn’t imagine she’d left anything out. When she was finished and looked up at him, eager for his promised wisdom, her blue bangs hanging just above her reddish eyes, he nodded slowly, getting his thoughts in order before speaking.
“That’s some shit, Ji-hyeon,” he said at last, and let out some of his anxiety over saying the right thing as she laughed again, stronger this time.
“That it is, Sullen,” she said, snuggling closer to him on their too-low, too-cold seat. “That it is.”
“That ain’t exactly helpful,” Sullen thought aloud. “But if I start telling you what I think you should do, then I’m just another singer muddying the chorus with his version of the song. Don’t wanna do that. But I’ll tell you this: I can’t pretend I’ve ever had that many riddles rolling around my nut at one time. I doubt most mortals have. So you’ll be in for some rough times as you try to figure it all out, and you might make some mistakes… but I also know more times than not you’ll do the right thing, so long as you trust yourself.”
“Gee, Dad, that sure is helpful,” she said, but before he could decide if that hurt his feelings or not she added, “but for real, I appreciate your opinion, even when it’s silent.”
“Hmmm,” said Sullen, not sure if he’d misunderstood what she was saying. “What, now?”
“Just telling you everything… I feel a little better, I guess, just having said it all out loud,” said Ji-hyeon thoughtfully. “No, I feel a lot better. Ever since yesterday’s battle I’ve felt… kind of… crazy? And ever since then it’s been one thing after another, with my second dad showing up, and then finding out about Empress Ryuki’s vendetta, and then Hoartrap coming by to tell me that not only is there a Gate out on the valley but we also somehow resurrected Jex Toth… it’s been too much, way, way too much. So I felt like there was this hurricane swirling around my head, of all the problems I have, that I caused, but there isn’t. It’s a stack of trouble, no doubt, but that’s not the same as a storm—you can take things off a stack, one at a time. That’s what I did to get this far, and I can’t lose sight of that just because the stack is so much taller. Maybe?”
“Uh, yeah. Definitely.” Ji-hyeon, man—he had no earthly idea how she’d put all that together from his cheesy inspirational speech. “And as far as all that stuff with a… a new Gate opening up, and this Sunken Kingdom coming back up out of the sea, right next to your family’s isle? Damn. That alone would be enough to freeze me up solid, and I don’t have the same fondness for my home and kinfolk as you do for yours. Spooky stuff.”
“You told me… you told me you maybe killed some of your clanfolk?” Ji-hyeon said cautiously. “Is that why you left Flintland?”
“Not exactly,” said Sullen, hardly wanting to get into all of that now, because there was no way to sing that song without singing of Grandfather, and he didn’t think he could manage it at present without his voice cracking. “I’m gonna be really rude here, Ji-hyeon, and beg your leave to tell my story another time. Is that… is that okay?”
“Of course!”
“It’s just, I can’t tell it without… without…” Sullen kept his eyes firmly on her but nodded toward Grandfather’s remains. Listening to her wild and harrowing tales of the battle and its aftermath, he’d almost forgotten about what had befallen him that day… almost, but not quite. “Without singing it all, though, I will say I know exactly how it feels to have your own blood turn on you, to have… to have to wonder if a parent you’d lay down your life for wouldn’t be a lot happier if you’d just disappear. And still missing her, worrying about her, hoping that nothing bad ever happens to ’er. Or him, I mean. Depending.”
“Oh yeah.” Ji-hyeon looked down, picking at the crust of frozen blood on her bandaged hand. In a quiet voice, she said, “If I could trust my second father, or if I knew everyone on Hwabun was safe, then the rest of it wouldn’t be so bad. Not at all. But for now… ugh.”
Sullen squeezed her closer against him, the bravest Outlander he’d ever met trembling like a bur oak in a gale. She looked up at him and he looked down at her, this blue-haired girl from the Norwest Arm fair as any frost giant’s daughter… too fair, in fact, like the kind of fair you went just before your skin blackened from frostbite. It was like a spell was broken and, though all he wanted was to tarry a little longer with the woman he adored, Sullen hauled himself up from the log. This sort of morning might be balmy by Frozen Savannah standards, but for a girl from the Immaculate Isles it must be about as comfortable as a dip in a glacier pool.
“We can talk more later, I hope, but for now let’s get you somewhere warm,” said Sullen, taking her hand and helping her to her feet. He was careful not to squeeze her fingers lest they snap off like twigs. “And long as I’ve kept you up here, get on with your day. There’s no rush on introducing me to them blacksmiths—Grandfather’s not going nowhere, and I’ve got two more days till I head out.”
Ji-hyeon had just started smiling again when his words seemed to hit her like the back of a hand. “Until you what?”
“Oh.” Ever since he’d run into Hoartrap the day before and heard of Uncle Craven’s most recent betrayal, Sullen had been thinking of little else but what he was going to do to the coward once he caught up with him. From Ji-hyeon’s hurt expression he should’ve put at least a little thought into telling her he was leaving… but then he hadn’t let himself hope she’d even much notice, now that her loverboy was back on the scene. “I swore an oath, Ji-hyeon, to wait three days for that evil uncle of mine to come back to camp on his own. When he doesn’t show, I hunt him down.”
“Oh,” said Ji-hyeon quietly, pulling her hand gently away from his. “But if he returns of his own accord, then the matter will be settled?”
“He won’t,” said Sullen, recognizing the naïve hope in her voice from all the years he’d nurtured it in his own heart, only to have his uncle uproot it once and for all. “Notice I didn’t have to ask if he’d come back already? He’s run off, same as ever, only this time he won’t be able to run far enough. An oath’s an oath, though, so he gets another two days’ lead on me. Hope he makes the most of them, ’cause once I get started he won’t have another day nor night free of pursuit, till his arse is mine or mine is his.”
“Is that so?” Soft as she’d gone there, the Ji-hyeon who stood before him now was the hard-as-a-honey-badger general he’d met when he and Grandfather had first hooked up with the Cobalt Company. Close as they’d been before, she got closer, rolling up on the balls of her feet to get in his face… or as near as she was able, being so much shorter than he. “You swore an oath to serve me, did you not? Forgive a simple maid her ignorance, Master Sullen, but abandoning my army to go on a wild goose chase sounds an awful lot like desertion. Did you know the Cobalt Company hangs deserters?”
“I—what?” Sullen couldn’t believe it, but looking into her unblinking eyes he supposed he had better. And as unexpectedly cold a play as it was on her part, she was dead right: without thinking it through he’d gone and sworn conflicting oaths, one to serve her without fail, and another to dip out the day after next. By Count Raven’s unimpeachable honor, Sullen really needed to start thinking these things through before he ran off at the mouth—what in all the stars above was he supposed to do, now that he’d snared himself in such a bind? She looked like she might take a bite out of him.
“I hate deserters more than anything
in all the Star,” Ji-hyeon said, her beedi breath hot on his chin, her bloodshot eyes burning even hotter. “Which is why I charge you, Sullen of the Frozen Savannahs, with tracking down the deserter Maroto Devilskinner.”
There, at the left corner of her lip, hiding in plain sight, was that devilishly concealed smile of hers, the one that had made him first fall for her. And even as it widened into something obvious, escaping into the snowy morning, he darted forward and trapped it with his lips. There was an instant where he wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life, but then she convinced him he hadn’t.
It was… it just was. Words are good for a greatly many things, and from the tongues of singers they can fill you with more emotions than there are stars above or devils below, but some things just are, and trying to catch them in simple words is like trying to catch smoke between your fingers. Why bother? It was, and that was enough for Sullen, and enough for Ji-hyeon, too, if he had to guess.
Their first kiss back in the tent had been something special, no doubt, but awkward and over before he knew what was even happening. This one, though, was worthy of the songs, the pair taking their time but neither giving up their ground, hands beginning to move, and legs as well, two dancers just starting up as she pushed into him and he backed up to let her take charge, and—
Sullen tripped over Grandfather, flailing backward and inadvertently pulling her down on top of him. The three of them sprawled out on the frosty ground, two blushing mortals and one dead man, and whatever it was before, it certainly wasn’t anymore.
“Shit!”
“Fuck.”
“Sorry!”
“Nah, my fault.”
“Oh gods, Sullen, are you okay?”
“Yeah, definitely. You?”
“Yeah.”
“…”
“…”
“Yeah.”
They scrambled up like two necking youths interrupted by an elder, neither looking the other in the face. Sullen knelt to roll Grandfather back onto his bier and Ji-hyeon helped, her cheeks as red as fresh blood on snow. She said, “We didn’t, uh, mess him up, did we? Is he okay?”
“Sure, yeah,” said Sullen, eyeing the rigid corpse. “Well, other than being dead.”
Which made her laugh a high-pitched nervous laugh, which made him join her, which turned into a guilty wail that stuck in his throat, which led to Ji-hyeon’s bodyguards and sentries running up on them to make sure everything was all right.
Which all contributed to Sullen and Ji-hyeon’s second kiss being even more awkward than the first. Maybe if he got a third chance with her the Faceless Mistress could put in an appearance. When Sullen Softskull made the scene, anything was possible… provided anything meant the worst fucking thing imaginable. Grandfather would be so proud, if only Sullen hadn’t gotten him killed.
“Everything’s fine, everything’s fine!” Ji-hyeon swatted away her armored guards and gave Sullen a nervous smile. “Let’s, um, head back to camp now. Before you head after your uncle we ought to figure out what to do with your grandfather.”
“Yeah, great,” said Sullen, because right then the prospect of punching Uncle Craven into a pulp was about the only thing that could’ve cheered him up. That was something else about Ji-hyeon; she always knew just what to say. “But no hurry, General, I know you’re busy, and like I said I’m not leaving for another couple of days.”
“Right, right,” said Ji-hyeon. “Well, until you can catch him let’s hope he’s having a shit time of it, wherever he is.”
“Nah,” said Sullen, forcing himself to look back at Grandfather’s face once more before turning back to camp with her. “I hope my uncle’s having the best three days of his life, because once I get started the good times are over.”
CHAPTER
5
If it wasn’t the best night of Maroto’s life, it was bloody near close! Drunk as a lord and twice as rich, with a grand meal and grander company—what Flintland émigré ever dreamed such a dream, let alone lived one? And given the bawdy direction Singh had turned the conversation, it had seemed the perfect time to tell the gang about the nickname he had settled on for his cock.
“Charity?” Kang-ho said, the corners of his face twitching as he tried to hold in a smile. “I thought that was what the whores were giving you!”
Laughter from the rest of the shit-faced gang crowded around the table. Laughter at Maroto’s expense, the obtuse curs!
“Charity begins at home,” said Maroto, having considered the matter at length. “It’s a virtue of the Trve sutras, and requires a gentle heart. All the bright-eyed young consorts try to return my coin after they’ve felt its warmth, and though it pains me, I accept the refund—charity must be given freely, but when it is, both giver and receiver enjoy its benefit.”
More laughter, especially from Hoartrap, but Maroto could never tell if the big nasty beggar was laughing with him or at him.
Fennec poured another splash of Pertnessian lavajuice into Maroto’s horn, the swaying Usban sticking up for him for a change. “Now, now, I say we applaud our friend’s wit, or that of the clever whore who put the notion in his head.”
“A fair point!” said Singh, spitting a red oyster of betel juice into the spittoon at her feet. “I would have expected something like clunge-plunger or bottom-borer from the lug.”
Those were both pretty funny suggestions, Maroto had to admit, and he had indeed toyed with more elaborate titles before settling on Charity. What he really liked about it, though, was that you could take the word all sorts of ways. It was subtle. He adopted an enigmatic smile as he waved his horn and explained, “Sometimes less is more, where these things are concerned.”
“I’ll bet that’s what they tell you!” Zosia hooted, the beautiful jerk punctuating her barb with a vicious punch to Maroto’s shoulder, and the rest of them fell apart, braying with laughter. Maroto scowled, but soon joined in—it was either that or beat the lot of them, and he was far too drunk for that. It had been a grand night, celebrating some forgotten success in some nameless bar in some random town when they were all young, dumb, and convinced they’d live forever, or failing that, die together, back to back, standing as one the way only true friends can when the chips are down, the cards are a bust, and the First Dark beckons.
Sooner or later, it happens to everyone: instead of waking from a nightmare to find a bright morning, you stir from happy dreams to discover yourself in a stinky pickle.
For Maroto, the horror of consciousness did not merely stem from the confirmation that he had indeed been flung devils knew how far across the Star by the treacherous Hoartrap, that what he’d so desperately hoped were bug visions were in fact memories. That was bad, of course it was, with Purna dying on the ground and Zosia betraying them and all the rest of it, but it was not the sum of Maroto’s horror. It wasn’t even the fact that he had shifted in his sleep and almost fallen out of the high crotch in the eucalyptus tree where he had lodged himself before passing out, thinking it safer than sleeping on the squelchy jungle floor. No, what made him sorry he’d ever woken up was a tiny thing, not much bigger than the centipedes he used to abuse, and just as sinuous.
The snake had been slithering across the torn front of his padded leather vest when he awoke, but it froze just as he did, his mouth arrested midyawn, its head cocked up as if trying to hypnotize him with its beady gaze. It was close enough to look enormous, a wyrm ready to swallow him whole, but down past its colorful arrow-shaped head he saw its stubby tail barely reached his belt. Might have been a pretty specimen, spied from a safe distance, but this close the scales as bright as dew-slick autumn leaves didn’t look so pretty at all… looked rather fucking deadly, as a matter of fact.
Maroto didn’t care for snakes, and not just because their bites were far more likely to kill you or make your parts rot off than give you a buzz. Well, truth be told that pretty much was the long and the short of it; he didn’t have any personal vendetta against the horrible, legless
, venom-injecting fuckers, but that didn’t mean he had to like them. They were just animals, after all, and like most any wild creatures, if you didn’t spook them and offered ’em an easy way out they’d take it nine times out of ten instead of throwing down on you…
Maroto stared at the small viper, and it stared back at him, the only movement a fragrant breeze through the eucalyptus branches. The problem was Maroto really wanted to give it a little breathing room, but that was damned near impossible with it already in his face, and as far as breathing at all went, his chest was starting to go all hot and angry, since he hadn’t taken in air since he’d seen the blighter. This, this right here? This was bad.
“Please don’t bite my face,” was what he wanted to say but didn’t, of course. Everybody knew snakes didn’t give a shit what you thought, and even if they did, they didn’t have ears. Still, he repeated the prayer in his heart: “Please, please, please don’t bite my face.”
At least he was finally alert, waking up to the snake flushing all the lingering grogginess of his epic bug hangover clear out of his system. Now he just had to do something. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, or at least the hardest thing he’d done since Hoartrap had dumped him on this hellish rock, but Maroto forced his eyes off the snake, taking in his surroundings, trying to see just how bad off he really was.
Worse than he’d imagined, apparently. Woof.
His worthless, comfort-loving flesh had betrayed him. Instead of staying awkwardly—but safely—wedged in the gap where a wide bough broke from the main trunk, in his sleep he’d sprawled backward onto the branch, arms hanging over either side, his crotch barely meeting that of the tree. He didn’t dare move his neck, and so couldn’t look to see exactly how high off the ground he was, or if there was anything to break his fall, but he seemed to remember climbing quite a distance, so’s not to be the low-hanging fruit for any predators. Another brilliant stratagem from the Mighty Maroto. Maybe if he knocked his bare foot against the tree trunk the noise would—
A Blade of Black Steel Page 6
