A Blade of Black Steel

by Alex Marshall

  “Fair’s fair, and you’re right, I’m the host so I’ll sing first,” he told them, and then realized there was a substantial problem with that. “Um, thing is all my songs are in Flintlander.”

  “So says the barbarian who’s been speaking Immaculate better than these two for the whole trip,” said Keun-ju.

  “Not the same, not at all,” protested Sullen. “The words are just a part of the song, it’s also… well, it’s the rhythms, the rhymes. I could tell it in Immaculate, but it wouldn’t be the song, it would just be the words, and not the right ones anyway.”

  “So have Keun-ju translate,” Purna suggested. “Don’t all Immaculates speak Flintlander, and every other trading tongue besides?”

  “Not nearly all,” said Keun-ju, his veil flapping as he leaned in to blow the budding coals into bloom. Sitting back, he added, “But yes, I hold a working knowledge of the tongue, among others.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s not the words,” said Sullen. “They need to rhyme, and it’s tricky enough to hit the right beats in Flintlander, long as some of them go.”

  “I have studied the greatest poets of Ugrakar, the Crimson Empire in its Golden Age, and over a hundred Isles,” said Keun-ju, seeming to take everything Sullen said as either an insult or a challenge. “If called upon I can recite all six chapters of Lantlôs’s final sonnet, or sing Dissektist’s Ode to Sacrifice and Salvation. I single-handedly translated Svedhous’s Vindication into modern Immaculate, and, I say with all due humility, that my own verse has been praised by no less a discerning critic than Lady Yunjin Bong.”

  “Might she be any relation to our general?” asked Diggelby.

  “Her elder sister, but that has nothing to do with it,” sniffed Keun-ju. “I simply raise the point to prove myself more than capable of translating Sullen’s Song of the Bestial Hell Ax of the Sulfur Giants or whatever it is.”

  “’Fraid I don’t know that one, though it sounds tight,” said Sullen, trying to come up with a way out of this—what had he been thinking, offering to sing one of his songs for these people? There might be a more embarrassing fate somewhere on the Star, but if so he couldn’t think of it. “Look, let’s just forget the whole thing—I’m not stopping every line so you can put it into Immaculate. And there’s no way you can sort it all out if I sing through it in one go, which is how songs are sung, traditionally.”

  Boos and hisses from the fops, and Keun-ju was on the offensive, obviously keen to have Sullen make an arse of himself. “I’ll make notes as you sing, and when you’re done I shall render an approximation in the same meter—the key to translation is a free hand, especially if you want it to sound right. I have read a few Flintland verses in my education, and so know firsthand that the… quaintness of the prose will make my task quite simple.”

  “Simple?” So that was it: Keun-ju had a low opinion of the songs of the Frozen Savannahs. He’d probably heard a few limericks and thought it was all a load of bawdy jokes and violent fights. Which, to be fair, much of it was, but Sullen now felt compelled to teach the stuck-up boy a lesson. Instead of the silly song of Skinflint and the Twenty-three Girdles, these twerps were going to hear how Old Black turned her back on the world of mortals and founded her Meadhall beneath the earth. Every. Heartbreaking. Verse. “All right, fine. But you two get dressed first, and if anyone laughs I won’t stop singing, but I promise you’ll have your gobs shut in a hurry. I’m a man who can beat arse and rhyme at the very same time.”

  “Have it your way,” said Diggelby, neither of the fops as enthusiastic about the song-off now that there was a gag order in place. Sullen pretended not to notice Purna mooning him as she went to put on some clothes.

  “Let me fetch my writing case and we can settle in,” said Keun-ju as Sullen finished his now cold hare. The lad soon returned with the long, fancy box he had received from the Procuress. None of the others seemed interested in talking about whatever had actually happened in the Jackal witch’s shop after Sullen had stormed outside, and since he was too polite to go hunting for weak game he had no idea what else exactly they might have received, what they had spoken of, or just what it was about the experience that made the normally chatty fops clam up like tundra oysters in warm weather.

  Case in point here—Sullen had assumed the brown-and-brass case housed some fancy weapon, or maybe an instrument of some design, but instead of opening it up Keun-ju began fiddling with its bottom. He unhinged thin telescoping legs so he could set the thing in front of him like a narrow table. Sullen tried not to gawp at this minor marvel, but from the cooing Purna and Diggelby made over it he presumed it wasn’t such a common tool even among the world weary. No wonder Keun-ju had provoked him into a song: he just wanted an excuse to show off his new toy.

  Now that the Immaculate was making such a big to-do over getting set up—opening the hinged lid and removing scrolls and weights and quill and inkpots, even lighting a narrow red candle despite the brightness of the campfire—Sullen felt the song shriveling in his throat before he’d even started. Oh, how he wished he’d picked up some more saam in Thao, having finished the last of it the night before; it didn’t seem right, to sing of Old Black without a burnt offering of her favorite herb… but before he could protest on this flimsy pretext, he saw the coughing Purna and Diggelby were passing an enormous beedi rolled from cigar leaf and packed with the skunkiest bud this side of the Raptor Wood. They took their seats on either end of the bedeviled tamarind post and the saam went around, even Keun-ju raising his veil to take a few impressively deep hits. There was some more small talk, and a good deal more trash talk, and then Sullen was out of excuses, out of time. His three companions all sat staring at him in stony silence, even the pony seeming impatient for him to begin. Nothing for it.

  “Right, so…” Sullen closed his eyes and returned to the sagas of his ancestors, one of the uncounted songs that had brought reason and happiness to his troubled youth. Even when every member of the clan turned their backs on Sullen, or did worse things than that, Old Black was waiting, watching, and she would judge them all, in time. And when Sullen’s own doom came upon him, he would stride proudly into the Meadhall she had raised for her worthy heirs, and there he would see his father again… and Grandfather, too, now that he had been delivered home, and in time enough, his mom, who he couldn’t think of without hurting so he barely thought of at all…

  And then Sullen banished these thoughts along with all the rest, for there is a time for thinking and a time for doing, and while he had taught himself this saga and so many others, he had never before sung it for an audience outside his immediate family. At last the song was something he must do, rather than merely think about. Opening his eyes and staring into the low fire, he began to sing.

  It was a longer song than he remembered, and he tripped a time or two in the telling of it, but by no more than a stuttered word or slipped beat, and his voice stayed deep and steady even when his throat grew as warm and dusty as the Jackal King’s skull drying over the hearth in Old Black’s hall. Even when it was finished he kept his eyes on the fire, basking not in the oppressive heat of the flames but the glow of knowing he had sung the song as well as he was able, and so honored his ancestors as well as himself.

  Coming slowly out of the song, the nightbirds and swamp-splashes and general hubbub of the forest reminded him he was not alone, and his audience had kept a respectful silence clear through to the end. He was all set to thank them for their politesse when he looked over and saw Purna and Diggelby sprawled next to each other beside the fire, eyes closed and mouths agape. Instead of being disappointed, he actually felt good to see his song had been a lullaby to these two miscreants—Sullen’s mother had often dozed off during his songs, and bittersweet as good snowmead, his thoughts turned to her, and how well she must be doing in the clan without Sullen and Grandfather to make her look bad…

  Then Keun-ju cleared his throat, and Sullen slowly directed his saam- and song-heavy head to meet the Immaculate’s cr
iticism, wishing he didn’t have to, wishing he’d stayed quiet and sung it only in his heart, feeling about as vulnerable as a tortoise who just realized he’d stepped in a fire ant bed. The empty surface of the writing case in front of Keun-ju did not bode well of his impression.

  “Didn’t even need to scratch any of it down, huh?” said Sullen, feeling as much the fool as he could ever remember… which was saying something indeed. Instead of replying with one of his barbs, Keun-ju just shook his head.

  “You were right,” said Keun-ju, and it must have been a trick of the light because it looked like there were tears in the man’s eyes. “That… that’s not something I could translate.”

  “That bad?” Sullen didn’t care what this milksop thought of him, so why did the insult to his song sting worse than any blade? Before Sullen could come up with some cool way to play it off, or storm off into the night, if nothing else, Keun-ju reached down, snatched up a twig, and threw it at Sullen. Sullen looked down at his chest where the stick had bounced off, then looked back up at Keun-ju. He couldn’t have been more baffled if his critic had stridden around the fire and kissed him on the mouth.

  “You know it wasn’t bad,” snapped Keun-ju, but now that he was getting used to talking to the man Sullen was beginning to realize that the Virtue Guard could be just as tricky to read as his mistress; tone wasn’t everything with these Immaculates. And it stood to reason Keun-ju would remind Sullen of the object of their mutual affection—they’d grown up together, and obviously shared certain mannerisms and tics. And… and hold up, now…

  “Hold up, now, you saying you liked it?” Sullen’s heart was pounding, his hopes unexpectedly raised.

  “Liked it?” Keun-ju’s eyes bugged out and his veil flapped around like a pennant in a storm. “That… that was an experience the likes of which I have never… never… experienced. Gah! I can’t even use words anymore! That was better than… well, no, but my gods, it was close! Liked it?”

  “So… yeah?”

  “If you tell me you composed that yourself I’m going to cut my own fingers off,” said Keun-ju, and he sounded like he meant it. “Go on. Tell me you wrote it.”

  “I didn’t,” said Sullen, now thinking he might have preferred an offhand dismissal from Keun-ju instead of this unsettling intensity. “I mean, I can’t even write, can I? And if I could, no way I’m smart enough to come up with something like that. It’s an old song, the oldest, maybe, passed down from one Horned Wolf to the next, until me. And for all I know I’m the last one who knows it—Witmouth, the singer who taught me, he… well, it’s another song for another night, and I’m not certain one way nor the other, but I might’ve killed him. I hope not, I do, but he was one of them what tried to stop me at the Flywalk, and we didn’t have no choice but to cut our way out of the circle…”

  Sullen let the words go, because now that the song was over he was just blathering, high on saam but far higher from the headiness that comes of singing a song of such grandeur. It was hard to steal breaths during a tale that intense, and the lack of air always gave Sullen the sways when he was done. He yawned, and when he could see again saw that the Virtue Guard had shakily risen and was quietly folding the legs back into the writing case. Sullen was about to suggest he take the first watch himself, bushed though he was, when a blast of light cut through his foggy brain, and not a moment too soon he realized he had committed two of the gravest insults a host could commit: he hadn’t thanked Keun-ju for his kind words, and he had hogged the night, singing so long nobody else was able to follow him.

  “I thank you for listening, Keun-ju, and for the mighty compliments you have bestowed upon me,” said Sullen, tottering to his own unsteady feet and trying to recall the formal words that he had never before had cause to utter. “I beseech your pardon for my gross, um, my grossness in singing so long into the night, and pray that you will do me the honor of singing a song of your own, if not this eve then the next.”

  This seemed to catch Keun-ju so off guard he almost dropped his heavy case, but then he stiffened up, and turned away to repack his bag and retrieve his bedroll. Smooth and swift as his movement was, he wasn’t quick enough for Sullen to miss the faint firelight that played over the man’s half-masked face, nor miss the fresh flash of wetness on his cheeks. Damn but this was strong saam, and some sentimental weed at that.

  “Would you like to know something, Sullen?” Keun-ju said when he returned with his bedroll, his eyes again clear and steady as he stepped out of his polished black boots and wriggled into the bedding.

  “Sure,” said Sullen, though he wasn’t at all sure he could handle any more odd reversals or revelations in one night.

  “I am beginning to understand why Ji-hyeon finds your company so agreeable,” said the Immaculate, rolling over so fast his back was to Sullen before he could decide whether or not he should confess the same… even to himself.

  Long into the night Sullen stoked the fire and considered how different this trip was shaping up to be from the one-man hunt for vengeance he had envisioned. His grandfather murdered and his uncle fled in disgrace, this should be the Time of Dark Sullen, the confused yearling of his youth replaced by an unstoppable beast. He knew he should be consumed with hatred for his uncle, that his every thought should be of blood and fire, but instead he’d spent most of the march daydreaming about Ji-hyeon or fretting about the Faceless Mistress and Zosia… and now he was singing fricking songs to these dear friends of Uncle Craven, instead of keeping his austere distance. He hadn’t even honored his word to fuck up the kid with the weakbow who’d shot Grandfather when the runt hadn’t waited around to face Sullen’s judgment back on the Lark’s Tongue’s plateau—what kind of a Horned Wolf was he, anyway, if he shied away from as simple an act of retribution as killing the Outlander who had murdered Sullen’s blood relation?

  No Horned Wolf at all was the answer he’d been trying to make stick ever since Thao, and even before. From the time he’d fled in the night and attacked the clanfolk who came after him, Sullen hadn’t had any right to associate himself with those people… and maybe it went way earlier than that, maybe he hadn’t been a Horned Wolf from the day he’d hauled Grandfather back into the village all those years before. And the more he thought about it, the more okay Sullen was about leaving all that baggage behind for good. He’d harbored fantasies of returning home a hero, having proved the whole clan wrong, but why should he ever go back? With the exception of his mother, every single damn thing he loved in this world wasn’t just different from the Horned Wolf way; it was anathema to it. Even a little thing like what had happened here tonight, him making peace with a hostile Immaculate not with violence but with song, that made him feel a hundred times better than any of his futile efforts to impress his clanfolk, and what did he have at the end of the night? Instead of blood on his hands or a blade in his back, he had a friendship, or at least the beginnings of one… and with a man who had every reason in the Star to hate him, a man who’d helped him carry a magic post given to them by a damned Jackal shaman! So now and forever, then, say it loud, and say it proud:

  “Fuck the Horned Wolves,” Sullen told the fire, having learned this night that words have even more power when spoken aloud… but saying it in Immaculate, because he didn’t think the Old Watchers would like him burning the clan in their own language.

  “Fuck ’em?” said Purna, licking her chapped lips with her long black tongue as she picked herself up from where she’d passed out by the fire. “Hardly knew ’em.”

  “Um…” said Sullen, embarrassed to be caught out.

  “Your business is your own,” she said sleepily, staggering a short distance off. Then, over the sound of her piss, she called, “I’ll take next watch. Anything weird happen while I was out?”

  “Yeah,” said Sullen, lying down and looking through the screen of low flames to where Keun-ju slept. “But it’s not the sort of thing that translates.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  W
aits was even warier than Domingo remembered, the willowy Thaoan colonel dragging her stool even closer to the bed and looking all around the empty tent as though there might be spies lurking in plain sight. That she had agreed to enter the enemy camp at all was itself an unprecedented act of boldness, especially after her shameless attempt to storm the Cobalts had apparently resulted in a giant opossum devil wreaking havoc for all concerned. But just as Domingo had told General Ji-hyeon, if the bait was tempting enough even the cagiest bird might be induced to go against its nature in pursuit of an easy worm. Domingo blinked at her, as if only now recognizing the visitor to his deathbed, and as feebly as he could manage he coughed a pitiful cough.

  “By Lord Bleak’s banner, what have they done to you?” asked Waits, but she sounded less concerned for his welfare and more impressed by the Cobalts’ gumption in laying him so low. “They claimed you shattered your spine in the battle and that’s why you couldn’t ride out to the midway meets, but I didn’t believe it. If I had I would have come sooner!”

  “It’s all true,” said Domingo with a groan that was all too easy to produce even though his bruised back was one of his few body parts that actually seemed on the mend. “As I wrote in my very first letter to you, I believe, several weeks past.”

  “Well, you know how it goes,” said Waits breezily, “it’s entirely too easy to forge those sorts of things, and until we’d settled on terms with the Cobalt command I couldn’t risk it. For both our sakes.”

  “Of course,” said Domingo, for the first time in their professional acquaintance stifling the urge to call her out on her bullshit. There would be time enough for that if he didn’t convince her to go along with his proposal. And though he knew the answer already, he said, “What changed your mind?”