“Hoartrap was right about you, then,” said the general, giving Domingo a cold shiver—so the Witch of Meshugg was working with her, too. “He couldn’t believe you’d sacrifice your regiment for any reason, let alone to aid the Burnished Chain.”
“For once the Touch speaks true. To paraphrase Lord Bleak, the Fifteenth are my children in all but blood, and I would shed my own for them as readily as they would for me.”
He expected something snide to come out of her, something along the lines of the reproachful thoughts that plagued his heart as soon as the hypocritical words left his mouth, but instead she said, “Good. It’s a strange and frightening thing, isn’t it, to be responsible for the lives of people who would never guess that you don’t know what you’re doing.”
He might have thought it a dig at his command if not for the melancholic note in her voice, the way she looked at the foot of his bed instead of his face. This was plain old green officer whinging, and didn’t the prats always make it sound like poetry? Domingo had never found command strange, it was the most natural thing in the world, and he’d certainly never found it frightening! Though maybe he should have, in retrospect…
“We don’t have time to bandy clever words like two foes in a song,” said Ji-hyeon, looking him full in the eyes again. “You’re my prisoner, and I’ll exploit that to stave off an encounter with the Thaoan regiment if I can. But there’s something more, something important that only you and I can work out, but if we do it’ll have to happen fast.”
“So get on with it,” said Domingo, all this talk of matters military making him feel more like himself.
“You will be far more useful to the Cobalts cooperative than reluctant, and so I have a proposal for you,” said the general carefully. “If you agree to work with me, to offer your counsel on Imperial tactics and to play the model prisoner, then I swear every soldier we capture will be spared and, what’s more, offered the opportunity to serve in my army as we march upon Samoth, on Diadem itself.”
Domingo would have laughed in her face if he could have, but he was no actor and her ridiculous terms transcended the amusingly ridiculous and entered the domain of the outright insulting.
“And if I don’t capitulate? You won’t last long as a leader of mortals if you start executing prisoners of war,” he told her. “Certain customs are sacrosanct by all peoples the Star over. Not even your Cobalt mentor would sink to such barbarism a second time—after the Battle of Eyvind she strung up all the captured Imperials from the trees, but that evil act turned half of her own allies against her.”
“Ah,” said the girl, “but she’s the one who’s going to murder your soldiers if I don’t stop her. She holds the Fifteenth Cavalry accountable for past crimes against her, and intends to execute them this very day.”
“The Cavalry?” The unit his son had led into that Kutumban village, the unit that had followed Efrain’s orders to raze the whole bloody town…
“What’s left of them, anyway,” said the general, rather smugly for a puffed-up little warlord he would have mashed under his heel if he’d rebuffed Brother Wan and fought the Cobalts fair. “Maybe thirty in all? It’s not much of a valuable unit anymore, I’ll grant you that, but I didn’t come here to broker a deal.”
“No?”
“I came here to tell you what’s happening, nothing more. Zosia holds those soldiers of yours responsible, and unless I intervene they’ll all die. If I do step in, it will raise the bile in my best captain—I can’t imagine she’ll take my order graciously. So you can either ferment in here until I ransom you back to Azgaroth, knowing you as good as killed another three dozen of your troops, or you can consent to my reasonable terms.”
Domingo considered it. “You expect me to believe you’d risk the wrath of the Cobalt Queen to have a more agreeable prisoner in your camp?”
“These days she’s not the queen of anything, she’s just one of many captains,” said the general. “And I’m not just asking you to be agreeable, I’m asking you to help me in my campaign.”
“Your campaign against Queen Indsorith, you mean?” Domingo could barely believe his ears—this girl was either mad or water-brained. Possibly both.
“Diadem is my target, but we both know the Crimson Queen rules in name alone,” said General Ji-hyeon, and for the first time he saw some real iron flashing in her eyes. And more than iron, something every bit as hard—the truth, or at least what she believed to be the truth. “I bear Indsorith no grudge, but she is either unable or unwilling to keep the Burnished Chain in check, and since she cannot then I will. Or do you think the Star would be better served with the Black Pope’s word as law? Especially since you seem to be personally responsible for raising the Sunken fucking Kingdom, I’d have thought the repercussions of your actions might have occurred to you. With Chainite prophecies coming to pass, do you think the church will be content with what they have, or do you think they’ll expand their control across the Empire, across the Star? You marched against me to protect your homeland, but now Azgaroth lies at the mercy of fanatics, as does every other Imperial province—how long do you imagine they’ll let you keep what little autonomy you have left? How long until this world becomes a living hell for everyone who doesn’t bow before the Fallen Mother?”
Damned if this rogue princess wasn’t keener than she looked. Crazier by half, too, if she thought she had any hope of success, but crazy wasn’t the same as stupid. If only Efrain had been a little more of the former than the latter he’d still be alive. Still, Domingo was a Colonel of the Empire and Baron of Cockspar, and those things still meant something. Clearing his throat, he said, “You’re even greener than you look, if you think—”
“Fine,” she said, and just like that she was done with him. “I won’t waste any more of your valuable time, Colonel Hjortt. If you’ll excuse me, I had better be present for the execution—if it’s going to happen, I can’t have rumors spreading that I didn’t order it. You will be safely kept in isolation until we’ve arranged the terms of your ransom, but we’ll be moving on long before that happens, so don’t make yourself too comfortable.”
She was almost to the flap of the tent when Domingo made his decision. He’d already betrayed Queen Indsorith when he’d conspired with Pope Y’Homa, no question about that. And though the debt he owed his queen certainly wouldn’t be paid by embarking on new collaborations with her enemies, this General Ji-hyeon was right: the Burnished Chain was the foe of all sane mortals, and Domingo knew better than anyone that the threat it posed to the Empire was far graver than that of any invading army or assassin. And more pressing than that, even, was the fate of the Fifteenth—thousands had laid down their lives at his order, and if he could save a few of those who’d survived the folly of his command then he owed them that much, damn it.
“She won’t be happy, will she?” Domingo called as the witchborn lifted the flap for her general. “If I agree and you spare my troops, Zosia will be furious.”
“I imagine so,” said General Ji-hyeon, looking back warily.
“Then I’m your man,” said Domingo, relaxing back into his pillow. “You save the Fifteenth, and I’ll never forget the debt I owe you. You have my word as Baron of Cockspar that I will help you bring war to the maniacs of the Burnished Chain.”
“Glad to have you with us,” said General Ji-hyeon, trying not to smile as she saluted him, the witchborn beside her raising a fist as well.
After a moment’s hesitation, Colonel Domingo Hjortt returned the salute. It hurt to lift his arm. As it should.
CHAPTER
8
Zosia had lost everything: her husband, her town, her empire, her devil, even her way. But she was still grinning like a babyskinner in an orphanage, because she finally had her vengeance. Twenty-seven members of the cavalry who had sacked Kypck were chained together behind her, awaiting her judgment, and oh did she have something fitting in mind. The miasma still clung like swamp vapors over the frost-stiff earth of the battlefi
eld, but here at the center the banks of smoke gave way to dark clouds above and darker matter below. Like all Gates, this newest hole in the Star looked almost mundane, a perfect circle of darkness punched in the ground. It might have been mistaken for a pond of oily ebon water, save for the weirdness it projected into the world of mortals—the snow turned black before it reached the surface of the Gate, some of the flakes sizzling away into steam, others contracting into hailstones. It was just the thing to cheer up an old widow on a dreary morning. She caught herself glancing down to her flank before she remembered Choplicker was gone; a pity, he’d have really enjoyed what was coming next.
“—all the more reason to, you know, slip off just for the moment so you can show me where it happened, since Digs can’t recall, exactly, and—whoa!”
The Gate accomplished what Zosia had not been able to—it put a cork in Tapai Purna and Pasha Diggelby, who’d been pestering her the whole walk out here. Gates were always impressive to mortal eyes, pools of gleaming midnight that simultaneously beckoned and repulsed, and this new one dwarfed all six of the originals, stretching wide across the center of the valley. Whoa, indeed.
“So everyone who didn’t make it back from the fight or turn up as a corpse… they fell into that?” said Diggelby in the hushed tone most people slipped into when they found themselves so close to something sacred… or something dangerous.
“Yup, swallowed ’em right up,” said Zosia, remembering too late that she’d meant to adopt a somber attitude; their friends Hassan and Din were still missing, and a thousand more Cobalts besides. “But it’s not hopeless. They might be okay.”
“Really?” Purna didn’t sound like she believed it.
“Well, not completely hopeless,” said Zosia. “There’s all kinds of songs about folk disappearing into one just to turn up someplace unexpected. It happens.”
“Poppycock,” said Diggelby, but it was a hopeful sort of poppycock.
“A long shot, sure, but like I said, it happens. I personally know several individuals who have done just that, coming out not much worse for the wear halfway across the Star.” Zosia elected not to mention that those lucky few had all known what they were doing and passed through the Gates in some highly specialized fashion that involved the use of devils, versus having the ground just give way to the First Dark beneath their feet. Most sane people would choose certain death to involuntarily entering a Gate, Zosia included… which was the whole reason they were out here. “But diverting as our little chat’s been, I do have to get on with my day—you two can bounce, or stick around so long as you don’t interrupt.”
“Actually, if you spare me just, like, a couple minutes, there’s something I really need to talk to you about,” said Purna, and from the frantic looks she and Diggelby kept exchanging Zosia figured the pair had deduced her reason for bringing the Imperial prisoners to the edge of the Gate and meant to dissuade her. If she hadn’t known what these captives had done to a villageful of innocent people she would have found it an evil play, too. “I mean, you’re a captain, so if you tell everyone to wait they’ll be happy to—”
“Time’s up, children,” said Zosia sympathetically. “You’ll sleep better if you leave now.”
Diggelby didn’t need further encouragement, hot-stepping it back toward the chain of prisoners and their guards, but Purna grabbed his gilded ponytail. For a moment it looked like he’d dart away, gecko-like, leaving her holding his wig instead of a tail, but then he went limp and turned back to Zosia with a sigh so heavy that the sailboats would be feeling a boost clear down at Lake Jucifuge. Signaling the squad captain in charge of the guards, Zosia watched in satisfaction as the prisoners were herded forward and lined up along the side of the Gate, a few paces separating each of them from the earthen rim.
Back at the stockade, this lot had been just as docile as the rest of the Imperial prisoners—whatever the Chainite clerics had done to make them go mad with bloodlust before the battle had left them perpetually dazed afterward. They’d come along a lot easier than lambs to the block, the woolly little bleaters actually taking quite a bit of wrangling in her experience. Now, though, confronted with the consequence of the Chain’s ritual, a change came over the slack-faced prisoners. It was like they were waking up after a long sleep, some jolting backward away from the Gate as far as their shackles would let them, others looking all about in confusion, some falling to their knees and others calling out in hoarse voices, demanding to know what in the name of the Crimson Queen was going on. The Cobalt guards and the pair of nobles were clearly disturbed by the transformation, but it thrilled Zosia; she wanted the condemned to be alert and aware of what was coming next. Most of her did, anyway; there was a tiny part of her that was appalled at what she was doing, and that inner voice of dissent was actually growing louder as she beheld the panic of the prisoners. It was a queasy sensation, to feel the pull of regret for a crime she had not yet committed but hotly anticipated.
“Friends!” she cried, loudly clapping her hands together. “It’s so good to see you all here!”
A few remained wide-eyed or inconsolable, but that got the attention of most.
“Zosia, if you could just wait a few—” Purna began to whisper, but Zosia gave her a look that warned she’d be next through the Gate if she interrupted again.
“I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced, though I’m an old friend of Colonel Hjortt. Both of them, in fact.” Some murmurs at that, and Zosia looked from face to face, some maidens and some middle-aged men, some boys and some grown-ass women, all looking like they’d been dragged over a league of rough country, with stained uniforms and matted epaulets. She wondered if one of them had been the asshole who’d stuck a spear in the back of a fleeing child, her hands still feeling sticky with the blood of Pao Cowherd a year on. She chose a woman whose back was straighter than most, and stared into the woman’s hard face as she said, “I am Captain Zosia of the Cobalt Company, lately of Kypck, and I can’t tell you how good it feels to be reunited with the heroic Fifteenth Cavalry. I’ve been dreaming of this day ever since you murdered my town last autumn. Your colonel and fellow soldiers who didn’t live long enough to join you here are the lucky ones. Justice has come for you, and her name is Cobalt Zosia, widow of Leib Kalmah.”
Even the weepers and the teeth gnashers looked up at that. Eyes bugged out and jaws dropped. Out of the frying pan and into the volcano, eh you fuckers? The woman Zosia had focused on blanched, then looked at her feet… which meant looking at the Gate. Zosia knew that expression well—hard a soldier as she appeared, the woman was on the verge of puking.
“Bullshit.” The declaration arose from about halfway along the chain, from a man even older than Zosia. His white stubble stuck straight out from his leathery cheeks, and he said it again, looking across the curve of the Gate to stare Zosia dead in the eye. “Bullshit.”
Under normal circumstances she would’ve marched right over and got in his face, but that would mean putting herself between the line of prisoners and the Gate, which definitely wasn’t happening. She settled for taking a bow instead.
“The one and only Cold Cobalt, risen like the shade of your past crimes,” she called as she straightened up. “I reckon you in particular might have recognized me from the bad old days, when Domingo was harrying me from pillar to post. Or did you enlist in your dotage, and only know Blue Zosia from the ghost stories of—”
“Oh, I know your fucking face, all right!” the old-timer shouted, veins bulging in his neck. “I know you, Cobalt Zosia, that I do! And I say it again: bullshit!”
“Do you, now?” Zosia felt something very cold turn over in her belly, like a bed of hibernating ice pythons twisting around in their glacial nest.
“You tear the Star up for years on end, kill more folk than I’ve set eyes to in seventy years, and now you got a claim to cry about a few lousy peasants? You gonna bring us a fate worse than death for a crime so heinous you used to do it twice before breakfast on a slow day
’s march for the Cobalt Cowards?” His voice was rising like a squall. “Bullshit! You’re bullshit, Cold Zosia, the same fucking fraud you were back in the day—all mouth and no fucking trousers!”
And then he started laughing, a thick, wet sound akin to a cough, tears streaming from his eyes as he shook a manacled fist at her.
It wasn’t true. It wasn’t. Zosia had never taken out a town the way they’d taken out Kypck, never; she’d always had a reason, and she’d never ordered innocents put to the steel… but innocents had died all the same, hadn’t they? Throughout the campaign, surely, and even more once she’d become queen—her attempts to dissolve the crooked feudal game and disperse the Empire’s wealth among the people had led to work camps and worse in some of the provinces. As soon as she learned of the horrors committed in her name she had tried to reform the reformation, of course, but not before countless souls had paid the price of her slack oversight. That was why her successor had come for her head, after all, Indsorith’s people having met a fate not dissimilar to the one the Fifteenth Cavalry had administered to Kypck. So no, this old Azgarothian hump wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, but that icy knot in her guts pulled so tight she wondered if she’d ever get it untangled. And all the while a man who’d taken part in the slaughter of her village laughed in her face.
“Thank goodness… you caught the baddies!” he managed between gasping guffaws. “Cold Zosia… to the rescue! Bulllllshit!”
Zosia was a calm woman, she really was. But before Purna even realized that the older woman was moving on her, Zosia had snatched the girl’s pistol out of its holster, cocked the wheel back, and took steady aim at the loudmouth. Purna was calling her name, Diggelby was prudently slinking away to the side, and still the man cackled, even as the gun went off.
A Blade of Black Steel Page 10
