With Purna he hadn’t made that same mistake, he didn’t think—she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested, and he’d backed all the way off, hadn’t thought about her in that way since the Wastes, really. But what about the other mistakes? What about honoring the memory of his friends with violence and hatred, instead of hope and happy memories? What about trying to actually live his life for a change, what about enjoying the thrill of exploring a land undreamed of rather than stewing in impotent revenge fantasies and daydreams of his new comrades dying just as horribly as his old ones? What about that, huh?
“Useful!” Maroto blinked, and peering up he saw the silhouette of Bang waving at him from what looked to be the apex of the ridge, some fifty yards ahead and above. This is what came of ignoring the pirate’s acumen—he’d been left behind again. And missed an extended opportunity to check out her backside, but he quieted that ignoble inner voice.
“I know you’re dead, Purna,” he told her, whispering to the sweet purple blooms that tickled his chin as he climbed. “But Bang’s right—I won’t give up on you. I’ll never give up on you. Never.”
“I changed my mind,” Purna called back to Sullen and Keun-ju as Digs splashed around in the beaver pond, blundering deeper into the pool as his hat floated away, just beyond his reach. The sun was dipping down into the trees, casting the dismal, damp scene in deeper shades of red. “This is balls. I don’t want to chase Maroto’s sorry ass anymore. Can I go back?”
“For sure,” said Sullen, “but you have to take Diggelby with you.”
Digs shrieked again, so shrill it made Purna squint her eyes shut, but when she reopened them to upbraid her tenor-hitting friend she saw he may have had something of a point this time. The closest of the small beaver dams was floating quickly toward him and, as she watched, the other mounds of branches were beginning to move through the water, too. All told, there were a dozen of the small driftwood islands moving in on them from the lefthand side of the shallow pool, each of them at least as big as a charcoal burner’s bundle.
“Run!” Sullen cried, the first order he’d given all trip that made a lick of sense… but as with all his orders, Digs ignored it, still flopping around in the water instead of getting back to his feet. Purna pushed ahead, keeping her cool even as the strange woodpiles sped up through the water, and coming abreast of Digs, she saw the problem: in chasing his hat he’d moved off the ankle-deep path through the center of the swamp, and fallen straight into a small sinkhole that opened up in the shallow mud.
“Come on, Digs, I’ve got you,” she told her idiot comrade, grabbing one end of his flailing swagger stick. If he would drop either the pizzle or the hat he’d finally nabbed, he could easily pull himself out, but then he wouldn’t be Diggelby if he didn’t prioritize his possessions over his own safety. Hauling him out by the cane, she nearly backed herself into another of the narrow but deep pools that must pit the swamp, but noticed the trap in the nick of time. Letting go of the stick and allowing Digs to flop back down in the shallows, she saw the nearest dam was nearly on top of them. “Move, Digs, move!”
It was too late, though—the other curious woodpiles had floated around to cut them off on either end of what she now realized was the only path through the swamp, both the way they’d come and their only way forward blocked by several dams. More of the mounds were moving in, too, and the one that had come for Digs now floated toward them over the sinkhole he had just vacated, close enough Purna could have spit on it. Despite the failing light and muddiness of the water, she clearly saw what it was that propelled the bundle of water-wobbly wood, dead leaves, and sundry detritus: a nearly skeletal human form, its eyes shining just above the surface of the pool, with the piled flotsam on its back making it resemble some monstrous turtle.
Well, Purna knew a thing or three about monsters, and before its grasping fingers could catch Diggelby she whipped her pistol out of her holster and fired. Some sticks broke off of its driftwood shell and a plume of mud clouded the water where she’d shot through its back, but it didn’t even register the wound, closing its long-nailed fingers around Digs’s boot. Her friend screamed as the thing began swimming backward, dragging him toward the deeper water, as oblivious to the twig-snapping blows of Digs’s swagger stick as it had been to the ball of her pistol.
This wasn’t just bad; this was Maroto Bad, as their friend used to joke about his luck. Grabbing Digs around the shoulder before it could pull him away, Purna tried to set her heels but began sliding forward in the muck after him. The fucker must be strong as all devils, to be able to tow Digs so hard without any footing, and her friend’s legs lifted clear out of the water as their tug-of-war neared its inevitable climax, the pasha going taut in the air between the opponents.
“Slip off your shoe!” Keun-ju cried, seizing Digs’s other shoulder.
“Have you given leave of your senses?” Diggelby cried back. “These boots cost more than your life!”
“Do they cost more than yours?” Purna grunted, wondering if Digs had just issued the foppiest last words to ever grace an empty urn, but then Digs planted his free foot against the heel of his snatched boot, and all three of them fell back in the swamp as it came loose in the creature’s grasp.
If it had continued the attack they would have been in bad shape, but as Keun-ju scrambled up and helped Purna out of the shallows, and as Purna helped Digs, they saw the corpse-turtle had retreated into the center of the sinkhole, holding the boot in both hands and gnawing at the white patent leather with its mud-oozing mouth. Purna began laughing hysterically, couldn’t help herself, really, as Digs screamed in outrage at the spectacle. Both of their outbursts abruptly ended as Keun-ju grabbed one of their shoulders in each hand and gave them a mighty shake. The usually sophisticated Immaculate’s methods were crude, but he had a point: the mound-covered monsters that had congregated on either end of the flooded trail to cut them off were now approaching, pulling themselves along the muddy bottom with water-softened hands.
There was nowhere to flee, they were outnumbered, and far more tragic than the loss of Digs’s boot, Purna realized she’d dropped her pistol when she’d collapsed into the swamp. She fell to her knees, rooting around in the mud for it, and when her fingers miraculously closed on the butt she gave a victory cry, wrenching it free of the muck… only to realize she’d just pulled a Diggelby, worrying about her prized possession when monsters were almost on top of her, keen to deprive her of something far more valuable. Only their sleepy-eyed pony seemed unconcerned by their prospects, Sullen clumsily balancing the magic post on her broad back, and Purna called bullshit on all the tales she’d ever heard of animals sensing danger and bolting in the presence of devils and monsters. But most of all she called bullshit on Maroto, on whose account they were about to be assaulted by fiends that were even wetter and weedier than dear old Digs, no small feat. Sticking the dripping flintlock in its holster and drawing her kukri as the monsters closed in, she shouted her war cry to the twilit swamp:
“Fuck Maroto!”
“Fuck Maroto,” agreed Sullen as he stepped up beside her on the narrow, sunken path, and then Digs and Keun-ju took up the call, too, as the first of the corpse-turtles came within striking distance: “Fuck Maroto!”
“You actually remind me a bit of her,” Maroto told Bang as he joined her at the summit. “My buddy Purna.”
“Oh yeah?” asked Bang, swallowing a mouthful of the starfruit they’d foraged in the foothills and wiping the juice off her chin. She sat lunching in the grass, leaning back against a rectangular boulder of white quartz that jutted from the flowery shelf at the top of the ridge. “Was she gagging for it, too?”
“Devil’s delight,” gasped Maroto, partly disgusted by the implication regarding his friend but mostly awed by the unexpected view. The ridge continued down the other side of the prominence, but the grass and flowers were interspersed with more chunks of ivory stone. Peculiar, given how barren their approach had been, but not nearly so peculiar as
the ruined city that filled the whole of the valley beyond, ancient white buildings rising clear up the surrounding slopes in place of trackless jungle. It probably would have been a little disquieting to any observer, stumbling across the remains of a settlement as grand as Diadem itself, but to Maroto the monochromatic wonder reminded him of nothing so much as that dreadful place Hoartrap had led them all to a quarter century past, in pursuit of eldritch powers: the Temple of the Black Vigil in Emeritus. Not a happy memory, that.
“Please pay close attention to yonder road,” said Bang, not rising from her seat but pointing to the north with a bare foot that was several shades lighter than the rest of her, boots cast off in the grass as she took her ease.
Taking a look, Maroto whistled—the track they had spied from below had angled away, as he’d assumed it would, but only to bypass a wide, shiny black lake that formed a border on the southern edge of the city, the road coming back around its shores and terminating in a mostly collapsed wall that must have once stretched a hundred feet into the air.
“Now then… Useful…” said Bang, punctuating her words with slurping sounds as she licked off her juice-slick hand. “I’ve obviously won… the bet… so we need to determine… what exactly it means. I’ve won your buns, but what to do with them?”
“How’s that?” Maroto was still taking in the spectacle, his eyes catching on the sparkling undulations of the black lake; dark as it was, if not for the light bouncing off it he would have assumed it was a Gate.
“We bet our bottoms to see who was right about being able to see the road from the top, and I’m the victor,” said Bang, no longer cat-cleaning her fingers. “So now you have to be straight with me, instead of playing the blushing virgin. Do you fancy girls, Useful, and how broad are your tastes?”
All of a sudden, the ruins of the Sunken Kingdom no longer seemed the most miraculous discovery of the day. Turning to Bang and seeing her lean away from the rock, arching her back in a stretch so pronounced that he could make out not only the nipples themselves but every contour of her areolas through her sweaty, sun-bleached shirt, Maroto gulped. “Are you, um… are you saying you might… are you asking if I fancy you?”
“Oh, have I been playing too hard to get?” Bang relaxed back against the stone, eyeing Maroto. “It’s no skin off my bits if you’re not inclined, in general or toward me in particular. My winning your bottom in our bet can mean anything, after all, from a bit of the slap and tickle now to a favor owed.”
Maroto must have looked as incredulous as he felt, because she sat up a bit straighter and said, “My apologies, Useful, I’ve obviously misread the situation. I’ll not bring it up again, and let’s call the bet paid in exchange for a friendly foot rub—if that’s not too unpleasant? No, I see that that’s how it is, so we’ll just say the next time I draw the short straw I get to pass it on to you, yes?”
“No apologies necessary, Captain,” said Maroto, a long-smothered heat roaring through him even in the nice breeze of the summit. “And since in all the weeks we’ve been at it I’ve yet to see you draw the short straw, I think we’d better settle on some other prize.”
“Oh yeah?” The way she bit her lip made him lightheaded. “Like what?”
“You’re the captain, you tell me,” said Maroto, trying to act cool despite how flustered he felt; was this really happening? “If it helps you decide, let me just list my credentials: my tastes are as broad as the Golden Cauldron, my skills legendary even among the Whores’ Guild, and I long ago had my equipment blessed by sorcery to insure sterility in every sense of the word.”
“I’ve heard that last one before,” said Bang, rolling her eyes. “And while it warms my loins to learn you consider yourself broad-minded and capable, there’s still that last sticky question—do you fancy pleasing your captain, Useful?”
Maroto nodded the affirmative, too emotional to speak—he’d been unintentionally celibate for so long he could scarce remember the last time he’d pleased anyone other than himself. Now, at long last, with a beautiful young pirate on a mountaintop where they could see any trouble coming from a long way off, Maroto was being ushered back into the carnal fold.
“You don’t know how bad I need this,” said Bang, color infiltrating her freckled and ink-speckled cheeks as she hopped to her bare feet. One hand rose and rested in the wiry hair above Maroto’s heart, framed by his tattered, sweaty vest. Eyes smoldering up at him, she whispered, “Are you sure you can handle me, Useful?”
He gulped his assent, too nervous to even return her touch just yet but pushing his chest firmly into her hand.
“You look like a fellow up for some rough stuff,” she murmured, “spanking, hair pulling, what the screws back at the brig used to call corporal punishment. Sound nice?”
It wasn’t necessarily what he’d have jumped straight into with a new partner, but whatever floated the captain’s frigate sounded just fine to Maroto. He nodded again, finally daring to reach out and brush the fiery hair from her face. She nuzzled his hand, and Maroto almost lost it right fucking there, the front of his old skirt lifting like a pirate flag being hoisted up the mast of a conquered vessel. This was really happening.
“All right then,” she said, all business as she took a step back and rolled her shoulders a few times. “If it gets too much say ‘banana,’ otherwise I’ll keep going no matter what I hear out of your mouth. Now turn around, I want you there, palms on that stone, perfect bend in that back, skirt flipped up.”
Maroto did as he was told, bracing himself against a boulder overlooking the valley. He should have expected this, really. He’d been on this end of such things before, and though it wasn’t really his favorite he was certainly game. He just hoped she’d let them switch before it was over, but knew better than to ask a pent-up captain with a frisky wrist. Once she’d worn herself out a little he’d—
“Fuck!” Maroto yelped, hopping in place. How could such a small hand deliver such a wallop?
“Three. For. Flinching.” Captain Bang punctuated each word with a slap, then poked the small of his back with another correction: “Posture, Useful, posture.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n,” said Maroto, the wicked glee in her voice restoring a good bit of the stiffness the initial blows had robbed him of as the blood was redirected to his stinging backside. The times Maroto had taken this role in the past he had been lukewarm on it, mostly doing it to earn a little bug money, but this time was shaping up to be a beast of a different pelt. Maybe it was not being touched out of passion in so long, or maybe it was Captain Bang’s obvious excitement, but Maroto found himself getting good and into it, waggling his bottom cheekily to provoke further strikes even as he sensibly slipped a hand between his legs to shield his pouch from her palm. So this was what was up!
He’d always enjoyed doling out smacks to a juicy bottom, sure, but had never quite seen the appeal of being on the receiving end… but that was changing, and in a hurry. That the encounter was proving as illuminating as it was satisfying just went to show that you never know yourself so well as when you’re in the boudoir with an enthusiastic partner or three. Bad as the first few strokes had burned, the pleasure Captain Bang was taking in him was downright contagious—he was once again giving his captain exactly what she wanted, what she needed, and more than that, he was enduring no worse than he deserved, and with each hot spank he felt like he was slowly paying off the debt he owed the world by being such a fuckup. He didn’t like being hurt as a general rule, but this specific kind of pain was something else entirely, maybe because it was the pain he deserved, the pain of knowing he would try to do better but still find himself in this position again, Old Watchers willing…
“You. Brought this. On. Yourself.”
“Yes, Captain Bang. Sorry, Captain Bang.”
“Sorry’s! Not! Good enough!” With this newest volley Maroto went weak in the knees, clinging like a drowning man to the quartz boulder in front of him. His arse fucking hurt, but he also knew that so far she w
as treating him way better than he deserved… and maybe that was part of it, too, all of Maroto’s flaws and failings and guilt driven out of him in a flurry of merciless spanks. Hard to think of much of anything as she kept working his increasingly tender bottom, and Maroto fixed his eyes on the black lake at the edge of the ruined city, concentrating all his attention on it to distract his shaking legs from another imminent blow. Perhaps he tipped her off by tensing or something, because she kept him waiting, and the expectation was almost worse than the slaps themselves. Or better, it was all getting very confusing.
“You’re just lucky my treasure chest went down with the Queen Thief, or else I’d have some proper instruments to work you with.” Instead of another slap, he felt a delightfully cool puff of air on first one side and then the other, Captain Bang leaning down to blow on his inflamed posterior as though feeding its heat with the bellows of her breath. Cupping a thumb under each cheek, she squeezed and kneaded him, thoroughly inspecting her tender prize, and Maroto tried to stop himself from flinching out of embarrassment, or as seemed more likely, going off without her so much as touching his engorged Charity… when the black lake he’d made his focal point began doing something weird.
Captain Bang murmured something, but his full attention was now on the distant lake and its rippling movement, the entire north shore flowing out and onto the white road they had first glimpsed coming up the ridge. How could a lake spontaneously overflow its borders and pour along a road, and uphill at that, it looked like, at least for a short stretch before—
The crack echoed out over the dead city, and it took Maroto several silent mouthings of the word before he finally managed to get it out with a little sound: “Banana. Banana banana banana.”
A Blade of Black Steel Page 44
