He smiled at her massive side-eye, a smaller, more genuine smile than she’d provoked out of him in a very long time, and she smiled back as he said, “While you’ve been doing… whatever it is you’ve been doing all day, I’ve done some digging on your behalf.”
“Annnnnnnnnd?”
“And Kang-ho’s not the only one who’s found out about Empress Ryuki’s bounty on you. The only thing that spreads faster through a camp than the pox is juicy gossip, and this morsel’s positively glistening. I’d be genuinely surprised if there’s so much as a cart horse that hasn’t overheard someone talking about it by now.”
Ji-hyeon’s stomach flopped. As general, she attracted notice everywhere she went, and she had finally gotten used to the sensation of being constantly watched. Yet now the drawn faces staring at them from around what low fires they were able to keep lit under the taller pavilions took on a sinister cast.
“They can’t be seriously considering it,” she said, telling herself as much as Fennec. “I mean, from our first victory any Cobalt sellsword with brains in their hat has to have known they could sell me out to an agent of the Empire for crazy coin, but nobody’s tried it.”
Fennec glanced past Ji-hyeon, and following his eyes she saw Choi blatantly pretending not to have heard what they were saying. Something even darker and colder than the snowy night occurred to her, and she said, “Have they?”
“A few sloppy betrayals, all resolved by Fennec and myself,” said Choi, as though such a trivial thing hardly bore mentioning.
“Wait.” Ji-hyeon stopped walking, and looked around to make sure no nearby tents had their open flaps cocked in their direction. All were tied up tightly from the damp chill. Still, she whispered, “A few betrayals? You’re seriously telling me that soldiers who took the Cobalt oath have plotted to kill me, and you never mentioned it?”
“One was a kidnapping, not an assassination,” said Choi, always the stickler for details.
“You have enough to worry about without getting paranoid over a few rogue elements,” said Fennec. “Treachery and sedition are occupational hazards of your post, I’m afraid.”
“So even you two are making moves behind my back, and I’m not supposed to be paranoid?” Ji-hyeon’s already bruised throat threatened to pinch shut altogether, the harsh air seeming to freeze her lungs.
“It is an Honor Guard’s duty to protect you from incidents that might bring you undue risk without the benefit of glory,” said Choi, who sounded even less guilty about the duplicity than Fennec. “I would no more concern my general with the doings of oath-breakers than I would with the machinations of worms in a midden.”
“And what about you, Spirit Guard?” she demanded of Fennec. “Didn’t want to trouble my soul with the quandary of how to handle my fellow sinners?”
“In my professional experience, what is bad for the body is ill for the spirit,” said Fennec with a shrug. “A dagger to the back, for example, can have an adverse effect on both your physical and emotional well-being.”
“Get stuffed,” snapped Ji-Hyeon. “I mean it, both of you. I’m not a helpless little princess anymore!”
“You’ve never been helpless,” said Choi.
“Look, just don’t hold anything back from me anymore. That’s an order.”
“As you wish,” said Fennec. “And on that exact topic, what I was attempting to tell you is that it’s not the grunts and humps you have to worry about where Empress Ryuki’s bounty is concerned.”
“Yes, I remember what you told me this morning,” said Ji-hyeon. “But Kang-ho didn’t try to snatch me during the meet, did he? If he plans on slapping me in irons and selling me to Othean he’s got a long game.”
“One which may involve his old compatriots,” said Fennec, lowering his voice and stepping closer to her. “The reason I asked about Zosia possibly talking to Singh is that the chevaleresse paid the stockade a visit this evening, and something tells me she wasn’t there to chat with any captured Imperials. Can you see where this might be going?”
Oh, could Ji-hyeon ever.
“Your dustup with Zosia might have been just the push she needed to reevaluate her role in the new Cobalt Company,” Fennec went on, perhaps mistaking her furious silence for confusion. “She’s sat in the same command as you, and she knows you won’t have much choice but to dole out some stern discipline after today’s fiasco. A general has her reputation to think of, and there were a whole lot of witnesses to one of your officers trying to murder you in cold blood. How do you think Cobalt Zosia would have handled a captain calling her out in front of the troops, and then—”
“That piece of shit,” Ji-hyeon snarled. “After all I’ve done for her… and for Singh, too, paying her dragoons twice what any other mercs in the Company are pulling down. Grrrrrr. Come on, this is shaping up to be a very interesting council.”
“I’m not saying they’re planning anything,” Fennec hastened to add as they resumed their slippery march to the command tent. “Singh and Zosia have always been tight, and the chevaleresse could have gone to Zosia to advise her to throw herself on your mercy, or just to make sure she’s all right.”
“Does that sound like either of their style?”
“Not exactly, no.”
“I didn’t think so,” said Ji-hyeon. “Hoartrap’s always been a wild card, my dad’s actively working with the Thaoans, and Maroto’s deserted us, quite possibly to betray us to the queen. I’m beginning to think teaming up with you old-timers was a bad idea.”
“I don’t believe I ever suggested collaborating with any of them,” said Fennec.
“Maroto is not working for the Empire,” said Choi, the first time she’d offered her unsolicited opinion all night. “I stake all my honor on this.”
“Fennec, the fact that you’re the most trustworthy of the lot speaks volumes,” said Ji-hyeon. “And as for you, Choi, I think your perception of the Mighty Maroto has been clouded by all the steam rising from your panties.”
“My… panties?” Choi sounded vulnerable, but Ji-hyeon was far too fucking pissed to cut her any slack.
“You’ve been talking him up ever since you came down from the mountains,” said Ji-hyeon. “Answer me plainly, do you or do you not want to make out with that manky old barbarian?”
“I… He… Desire would never compromise my judgment,” stammered the usually unflappable Choi, which was such a shady dodge that Ji-hyeon almost threw up in her mouth at the mental image of Maroto and Choi getting frisky.
“Keep telling yourself that,” she told her flushed Honor Guard. “For your sake and mine I hope he isn’t a spy, but we can’t know for sure until we catch him. At the moment, though, I have more immediate Villains to deal with. I’ve got more than half a mind to have Zosia brought up from her kennel so she can hear what I have to say—there’s a lot of deadwood in the Cobalt Company, and a night this cold calls for a bonfire.”
The Azgarothian jackals had just begun to gather around Zosia’s lean-to when a hissing torch scared them off, and Zosia dropped back down from the palisade she’d been halfway up. Climbing up the icy posts with cold-deadened fingers was proving so difficult she was happy for a reprieve, shoving her hands in her armpits in case the guards were just making the rounds. Now that her talk with Singh had cleared her mind, taking on a gang of wrathful Imperials was sounding like a lot more bother than just going over the wall and cutting out on her own.
“Captain Zosia?” said the older of the two greybeards, rough-looking fellows who were either cousins or closer relations still. Then again, it might have been the clutch of long, thin scars that squirmed across their faces that gave them a similar aspect, the ancient wounds shiny in the torchlight.
“That’s me,” she said, and the men exchanged wonderstruck looks. When they’d received their orders they must not have believed it was really her, and she impatiently stamped her feet. Earlier in the eve guards had delivered firepots and fuel for the prisoners along with the tarps and tents, but
Zosia hadn’t felt inclined to join one of the tight rings of freezing Imperial soldiers who’d clustered around the meager heat like flies drawn to warm shit. “You got a message for me, or can I go back to freezing my hams off? Hard to get a nice case of frostbite with you boys waving that hot torch in my face.”
“The general wants you brought to her tent,” the slightly younger one said. “And pull your hood down; she doesn’t want the whole camp seeing you come in after what you done.”
“Heavens, no,” said Zosia, curtseying with the cold-stiff hem of her cloak.
“And I’ve got to put some bracelets on you,” said the older with the tone of a man trying to coax a spooked horse into a bridle. He held up the manacles for her inspection but had the sense not to approach her. She was about to tell these two to go back to Ji-hyeon with a nice big raspberry if the girl thought Zosia would march through camp in chains, but seeing how anxious they already were she decided to be obliging. That quick-tempered brat would probably blame these poor schmucks for failing to follow her orders, and Zosia figured she’d already gotten enough innocent soldiers in the hot seat for one day after talking the stockade guards into letting her carry off the cavalry.
“You don’t have anything in silver, do you?” she asked as she stuck her wrists out for his irons.
“’Fraid not,” said the older man, and with a surreptitious little bow of his head, added, “Your Highness.”
Zosia returned the nod as he clicked the manacles into place, thinking back to Singh’s scheme. How many of the new Cobalt Company were old-timers like these two, who might’ve served under another blue banner a quarter century past, or who at least knew who she was, what she’d tried to accomplish? Maybe some of these sellswords would be happier if she pulled a tidy little coup… but it wasn’t about them and what they wanted. At her age Zosia had learned it was hard enough to make yourself happy without getting overly concerned with the wants of strangers.
“If you’ll be so good as to follow me, my lady,” said the younger man as he led the way with his torch, and Zosia was touched by the chivalry of two scar-faced career soldiers who extended what courtesy they could to the Stricken Queen, even at her lowest point.
“It will be my honor, gentlemen,” she said and, blowing a kiss to the nearest dark clump of Azgarothians, followed the Cobalt soldiers out of the stockade to have a word or two with her impostor.
It all came down to this meeting of her captains—if Ji-hyeon was usurped from command of the Cobalt Company, it would be tonight. She’d allowed herself the fantasy of somehow tricking them all into the tent and then setting it on fire, but even if such a dramatic ploy were actually tenable there was the annoying wrinkle that all of her potentially traitorous commanders were so damned useful. No, the only way to steady her tumultuous future and reaffirm her role as unimpeachable general was to meet these schemers head-on, with a steady voice, a level gaze, and a harsh ass-whipping, if it came to that. Hesitating at the entrance to the command tent where everyone had settled in while she reunited herself with her weak dozing devil and then swiftly scared up and appointed her two new captains, she took a deep breath of the bracing air. She could do this.
“All right, boys,” she whispered to the men behind her, “if things go bad, you know what to do.”
Keun-ju blew his veil out and up to reveal a sly smile, fingers tapping the pommel of his four-tiger sword. Sullen frowned, looking down at the handle of the top sun-knife on his bandolier as though it were a stinging insect that he was hoping would fly away on its own without his needing to brush it off. She wanted to come in close and kiss them both, and so turned back to the trouble at hand without kissing either. She had to figure out what she was going to do about this ridiculous romantic mess she’d created, but first there was a slightly more urgent concern. Making sure Fellwing was sturdily nestled in the elbow of her now good and useless left arm, she pulled back the flap and entered the command tent as if she didn’t have a care in the Star.
“So glad you could join us—and you’ve brought your gentlemen callers!” Hoartrap waved them over to the command table where he, Singh, and Fennec sat sipping ruddy pine liquor and snacking on sausages, puddings, and cheeses. Choi stood behind Ji-hyeon’s empty chair, but instead of going around the side to take her seat the general walked to the front of the figurine-cluttered table with its crude map of the Lark’s Tongue valley. Without addressing the three Villains, she scooted away a steaming platter that had invaded the edge of the map and began rearranging the red miniatures on the board to reflect the afternoon’s movements of the Thaoan regiment. They were the same pieces she and her second father had used for their many war games back on Hwabun. Seeing the encroachment of the Crimson troop on the Cobalt camp, the pale sorcerer said, “Oooh, that doesn’t look good—fenced in, are we?”
“Interesting,” said Singh, leaning forward and popping one of her tiny betel leaf–wrapped packets of tubāq and bugnut into her mouth; apparently talking with one’s mouth full didn’t violate the chevaleresse’s sense of propriety. “They mean to hold us here but don’t seem to be planning an immediate offensive. Why wait for reinforcements, though, when they have such a superior force and our troops are war wearied?”
“No doubt they see how well that strategy worked for the Fifteenth,” said Hoartrap. “As I said this morning, it’s likely yesterday’s ritual was entirely the Chain’s doing and not the Empire’s, and so the Thaoan colonel may believe we were responsible. In such case, prudence—”
“I made sure the Thaoans knew exactly what happened yesterday,” said Ji-hyeon. “I told Colonel Waits everything I knew, and offered her the opportunity to align herself with the Cobalt Company as we march on Diadem. She’s taking it under consideration, but in the meantime she’s ensured we can’t slip away.”
There was a stunned silence from the table, and then Hoartrap hooted with fruity laughter. Fennec and Singh exchanged concerned looks, and the chevaleresse said, “A bold invitation from an inferior army.”
“Our quarrel has never been with any one soldier nor officer, nor any single province,” said Ji-hyeon. “Our enemy is the corruption of the capital, particularly the malign influence of the Burnished Chain. Now that the Chain has murdered an entire Imperial regiment in the service of their mad ambitions, it is safe to assume they are attempting to overthrow the queen and seize absolute power for themselves.”
“Unless the Crimson Queen actually gave her blessing to this unorthodox offensive,” said Hoartrap, all business again. “If we’re jumping to wild conclusions, why not just assume she’s a born-again Chainite herself?”
“Because she isn’t,” countered Ji-hyeon. “I interrogated Colonel Hjortt, and he confessed enough that I am sure this plot to resurrect Jex Toth was not known to Queen Indsorith. Which means yesterday’s ritual and its sacrifice of thousands of Imperial soldiers constitutes a declaration of war by the Black Pope, not just against the Crown but against all free people of the Star.”
“Interesting,” said Fennec, pouring his general a dram of the resinous red liquor. “It’s true that in every Chainite rebellion since Zosia’s time, Thao has sided with the queen, not the pope, so this plan may have potential…”
“Only if my second father doesn’t talk Waits out of it, in favor of ransoming me to Empress Ryuki,” said Ji-hyeon, turning her full attention to Singh. “Or if someone here in camp didn’t have a similar notion, selling me to the Thaoans in exchange for the rest of the Cobalt Company going free. If the Chain truly has the power to raise dead empires from beneath the oceans, perhaps resisting their reign is hopeless. Perhaps both the Thaoan regiment and the Cobalt Company would be better served by getting on the winning side, instead of standing in the way of destiny. What do you think about such a course, Chevaleresse Singh?”
Singh didn’t flinch, eyes locked on Ji-hyeon’s, mustache gleaming in the lantern light. From the corner of her eye Ji-hyeon saw Hoartrap open his mouth to say something smart, but he must h
ave thought better of it. Without breaking Ji-hyeon’s gaze, Singh slowly rose to her feet, and then spat a red blob onto the center of the table. If she hadn’t been so insulted to see the blue general figurine dripping red from Singh’s betel-stained spit, Ji-hyeon might have been impressed by the woman’s aim.
“On your honor as a chevaleresse, Singh, what did you and Zosia speak of in the stockade?” Ji-hyeon demanded.
“Many things,” said the old woman with a crimson-toothed grin. “But you wish to know if we plotted to usurp your command and sell you for a profit, yes?”
“Your intuition is impressive,” said Ji-hyeon, waiting for the chevaleresse to spring across the table, or for Hoartrap or Fennec to make a move. Then Singh’s hand rose and slowly inched into a fold of her black sari, making no effort to conceal her movement. This was it…
“We talked of the potential for such actions, but ultimately Captain Zosia dismissed it,” said Singh, reaching down and picking up the soiled general from the table. She snapped a handkerchief out of the fold in her sari and quickly cleaned it, then set it back in the center of the map.
“Why?” Ji-hyeon tried not to let her relief show.
“She thinks highly of you, General Ji-hyeon, and said… how did she put it?” Singh tugged thoughtfully on her mustache. “Ah, she said we were too old for such petty schemes, and even if we weren’t, you are far more valuable than the price Othean has placed upon you. She thinks that what happened yesterday is proof that the Burnished Chain has become a bigger threat to the Star than any in memory, and if anyone can lead an army against them, it is you.”
Ji-hyeon didn’t know what to say, but Hoartrap filled the silence for her:
“Cold Cobalt, the Banshee with a Blade, and the Heart of a Lamb. Who knew?”
“Let’s not get carried away,” said Fennec. “If Zosia thinks a few platitudes and the decision not to double-cross Ji-hyeon is all it takes to get herself off the hook for this afternoon’s madness at the Gate, she may find herself gravely mistaken. How exactly is the general supposed to maintain order if she pardons a captain who tried to murder her?”
A Blade of Black Steel Page 18
