A Blade of Black Steel

by Alex Marshall

CHAPTER

  19

  Horned Wolves do not ride. The prohibition was far older than Best herself, but this, she told herself, was not riding. It was… something else, and not something she liked, but obviously not the same thing at all as sitting on an animal’s back.

  The tiny house was roomier within than without, as was to be expected with witches. But instead of being built atop chicken legs or a turtle shell, as with the witch huts in Sullen’s songs, this one rested on wooden wheels, and the horned wolf familiar of Nemi of the Bitter Sighs pulled the house behind her like an ox pulls a plow. Had any other beast propelled the hut, Best would never have agreed to join the sorcerer, but one could only question the Fallen Mother so far—a horned wolf was a horned wolf, and not the sort of message a Horned Wolf could ignore.

  But that didn’t mean Best had to like it. Even after weeks of sitting in the rattling, jolting, bouncing little house her stomach refused to become comfortable, reminding her in the worst way of the few times her father had marched her and her brother all the way out to the coast so they could paddle around on a coracle when they were young. At least on the boat there had been a rhythm to the rocking, but in the house it was unpredictable, with nary a bump for hours, and then hours more of it feeling as though they were being dragged over a giant’s washboard.

  It could have been worse, though—at least she hadn’t gone blind, like Brother Rýt. He had brought it entirely on himself, so Best did not feel much sympathy for the chubby monk, especially since she now had to mind him more than ever. What kind of a fool does the one thing a witch tells you not to do? Brother Rýt, that was who.

  Best had admittedly been curious, too, when Nemi had ushered them into the house that first morning on the plains and pointed out the strange birdlike creature sitting on a nest of woven hair and shredded parchment. It resembled a chicken, except for the black scales on its wings, back, and serpentine tail, and the white hue to its birdlike legs, chest, and beak. The small hood of stitched leather and iron had actually been the last thing she had noticed, but it was the first thing Brother Rýt commented on.

  “Never, ever take that off,” Nemi had cautioned them before shutting them inside and taking her position on the roof, from whence she steered the horned wolf. “If you do, she’ll make you wish you hadn’t.”

  This was the first of Nemi’s prophecies to be proven true, and when Best was startled out of one of the few naps she’d been able to slip into on the journey by Brother Rýt’s scream she had known at once that he’d gone against the witch’s wishes. Fortunately the monk had only lifted the edge of the hood, and as soon as he’d met the creature’s gaze he had stumbled back with a wail, letting the protective mask fall back into place. Best stopped berating him when she pulled his hands away from his face and saw his eyes had turned to gemstones, because even if it was his own fault Best could tell he’d learned his lesson.

  What had he expected from such an animal, though? Even with its hood in place it seemed to always be watching them, and was this not the same creature that Nemi had used to divine their path? Best had decided she wanted nothing more to do with the thing after Nemi had insisted the Horned Wolf hold out her hand and let its sharp beak peck her palm, and shortly after it had tasted Best’s blood it laid a crimson egg that the witch fed to the horned wolf. To guide them to Best’s kinfolk, Nemi told her, but that did not explain the other eggs the creature laid, black flecked with gold. Before setting out each morn the witch would crack one of these eggs into her mouth, and Best paid close attention to how after this breakfast Nemi would seem spry and healthy, save for the slight twist in her back… but come evening the young witch was barely able to move without wincing, and instead of breathing easy she bought each breath with a wheezing gasp. If Nemi of the Bitter Sighs ever betrayed Best, she would strike the lizard-bird first, for it was clearly where the witch had hidden her heart.

  Fallen Mother’s mercy, it would not come to that. Other than being a witch, Nemi made better company than the increasingly whiny Brother Rýt, and at night she would draw her singing sword as they sat around their fire. Tucked into the scabbard beside the incredibly thin single-edged blade was a bow of the witch’s own brown hair, and sitting on the stoop of her hut with the dull point of the sword planted between her feet, Nemi would bend the supple steel and run the bow along its dull side, drawing forth keening wails that made the flames bend and sway in time with her music. Brother Rýt quietly prayed all the while, but Best preferred the melancholy songs of the sword to the monk’s low mutters. Nemi’s playing made her think of the open Savannahs under a full moon, of the wind running through the summer grass, of what might be found at the bottom of the wide, sluggish river they crossed after several weeks of monotonous travel, but Brother Rýt’s prayers only made her think of her dead husband, her disgraced family.

  One evening as the Bright Watcher dressed herself in the evening’s blood, the setting sun casting its last rays through the hut’s narrow windows, they bounced over a final root and stopped, though it was always Nemi’s custom to drive the horned wolf deep into the night. Brother Rýt moaned a little from his padded chair, as if sensing the avian familiar’s presence on the cluttered shelf behind him where glass baubles, wooden puzzles, and countless tomes stayed in perfect order despite the chaotic movements of the house. The small door Best always bumped her head passing through creaked open, and Nemi’s silhouette stood framed by the quiet red wood behind her.

  “The trees are too thick for my wagon, but we are very close,” spoke the witch, and hauling herself up into the already cramped interior, she retrieved a gold-flecked egg from the nest. Best slid out onto the leaf-strewn ground as Nemi slurped the egg behind her, and the unusual hour of the witch’s feeding brought a nervous hum to Best’s throat. They must be right on top of her missing kin and their dread sorcerer companion, if Nemi felt compelled to eat a second egg in a single day. As the witch left her wagon, she said, “You… you just stay here, little Chainite, and keep Zeetatrice company.”

  As Best donned her horned hunting helmet and stretched her cramped limbs beneath the high boughs of the bald cypresses, she saw Nemi had clasped her singing sword to her pouch-laden belt, and while her gait was steady from the efficacy of the egg the witch also carried her feather-topped staff.

  “Here we come to the end of our road, Best of the Horned Wolf Clan,” said Nemi, and Best saw worry and excitement and yet more worry on the girl’s face. “Perhaps. If Hoartrap is still in the company of your kin, we must strike him first, and hard, lest you not have the chance to face your family.”

  “How will I know this Hoartrap?” asked Best, hefting her grandmother’s sun-knife in her strong hand and balancing her spear in the other. “And would you not prefer to claim your vengeance for yourself?”

  “If he is here, you cannot miss him,” said Nemi. “Taller than you, nearly as broad as my wolf, and paler than Zeetatrice’s breast. As for claiming my own vengeance, I will consider the battle fairly won if we bring him down together—even with my wolf at our side, he will not fall without cost.”

  “Who is he, then?” asked Best as Nemi unhooked the horned wolf from her harness. She had never asked, for it was not her place to pry, but if Nemi begged her help to slay the sorcerer then she had a right to know. “This hated enemy not only of Nemi of the Bitter Sighs, but all of the Star, what is he to you? A rival to your power? An assassin of your people?”

  “He was my tutor,” said Nemi with a smile that looked as mad and hungry as that of the horned wolf who bared her teeth and padded off into the shadows. “But now it is my turn to repay his lessons with one of my own.”

  Best nodded, knowing if they came through this hunt she would be within her rights to request the full song. For now, she accompanied an admitted witch into a foreign wood on the western edge of the world, knowing that whatever else lurked in the closing dark, her son, her father, or her brother waited among them, if not all three. Her palm sweaty on the handle of th
e knife forged from her great-grandmother’s bones, Best followed the white shadow of a horned wolf as it stalked between the trees, and knew she would do what she must, when the time came.

  CHAPTER

  20

  As the Lark’s Tongue curled around the sun, swallowing another day, the winter valley took on the bluish pall of a drowned sailor. Away from the tents it was silent save for the crunch and squeak of boots tromping through the strips of snow and wider patches of frozen earth, and the tapping of claws on ice. The Gate looked even creepier without the smoke that had initially concealed it, or the heavy snows that had come after. Now it just loomed there in the midst of the winter landscape, like a hole poked through a holiday-themed tapestry. In the fading light Zosia led them right up to its rim, and while their destination must have been obvious as soon as they had left the camp, only now did Boris speak up.

  “I was afraid of this,” said the man, staring down at the impenetrable void. “Ever since we brought Portolés down here and watched it swallow ’er up I just knew I’d be following, and figured you’d be the one responsible. I’m your, what’s the word… test? You toss me in and see what happens? That’s my big contribution?”

  “For a godless bastard, you sure are eager to jump to conclusions,” said Zosia.

  “Being a heretic’s not the same as being godless,” he said. “And looking at something like that it’s hard to say there’s not something more at play than the natural workings of the mortal world, but that don’t mean I want any part of it.”

  “Sensible fellow,” said Hoartrap, pulling his robe tighter around his barrel chest. He was looking a lot better than he had in the first few weeks of his recovery from the disaster with the devil queen, but something was definitely up with the sorcerer, his normally high spirits declining further and further with each step they took away from the command tent. He idly kicked a dirty clod of ice with one fluffy wool slipper, and they watched as it spun out over the Gate. Instead of skipping along the surface or sinking beneath it, the chunk of ice boiled away in seconds, leaving white vapor hanging over the black lintel.

  “Oh fuck no,” breathed Boris. “Really?”

  “Really,” said Zosia, though she wasn’t feeling much better about the situation. Choplicker was playfully running laps around the wide rim, as if stretching his legs before climbing into a rowboat for a long voyage. He barked at her from the far side, his coat again blending into the night, his gait strong, his eyes and teeth shining. He clearly wanted this, and shouldn’t that be enough to put her off it entirely?

  “You telling me you don’t believe some higher power is looking out for you, and you’re still willing to take a swim in there?” asked Boris.

  “Having no faith at all is still a kind of faith,” said Hoartrap, but it didn’t sound like his heart was in his contrariness. “And besides, our Zosia has a guardian angel, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, my little wet-nosed angel, who smells like death warmed over every time his fur gets wet,” said Zosia, and Choplicker zipped past them on another lap, tail slapping the back of her hand as he went.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” said Boris, wriggling his hands in the ginger mink muff Zosia had found him, along with the rest of his warm but similarly ostentatious costume of plush furs and brightly dyed leathers. She’d put it together from the leftover wardrobes of the recently deceased Duchess Din and Count Hassan; Purna and Diggelby had picked their friends’ tent pretty clean before setting out, and so what had remained were the items that even the other fops found too flashy or gauche.

  “Well, then this will be an educational experience for all of us, because I don’t know if it’s a great idea, either,” said Zosia. “But we’re about to find out.”

  “No!” Hoartrap’s outburst made Zosia jump, the Touch beginning to pace back and forth, rubbing his mostly healed hands together in the frigid air until the scabs on his palms began dusting the snow. “I won’t go. End of song.”

  “End of song? Son, you haven’t even started it,” said Zosia, an already dodgy prospect becoming downright nauseous. “If you can’t take us through now, how in fuck’s name do you intend to bring the whole Company through tomorrow?”

  “I’m deeply sorry, Zosia, but you’ll just have to ask your devil to ferry you across,” said Hoartrap, keeping his eye on the streaking canine shadow instead of meeting her glare. “I’ve been pondering a way to gird myself ever since Ji-hyeon gave the order to take you to Diadem, but I’m coming up empty. Here on the Star, your willpower keeps the fiend in check, but the rules are different beyond the Gates. It’s too risky, exposing myself to his mercy like that, so you’re on your own—I’m going back to camp.”

  “Ji-hyeon gave you an order, Hoartrap, you can’t just say no!”

  “Watch me,” said Hoartrap, his mood already improving now that he had made up his mind. “If I’ve learned one thing from watching the two of you bandy words, among other things, it’s that our general is lenient even with those captains who break her nose.”

  “We’d better go back, too, yeah?” said Boris hopefully. “I mean, if that guy’s not willing to try it out…”

  “Like the general said, every moment we’re not in Diadem we’re worsening our chances of success tomorrow,” said Zosia. “If you don’t do this, Hoartrap, you’re actively helping the Burnished Chain.”

  “Codswallop,” said Hoartrap. “Keeping myself alive, sane, and with both feet on the Star is the most I can offer the cause. The church would love nothing more than to have me walk into a Gate and never come out again, and I have no intention of granting any of their wishes… nor those of your devil. I have no doubt he is more than capable of seeing you safely through all by himself, so don’t try to blame this on me—stay or go, it’s your choice, but I wash my hands of it.”

  “So that leaves us where, exactly?” demanded Zosia. “You going back to Ji-hyeon, hat in hand, while I let Chop lead me into a fucking Gate? How stupid do I look?”

  “That depends if you trust him enough to follow him through,” said Hoartrap. “In which case I’d say pretty fucking stup—”

  Choplicker flew out of the gloaming, front paws buffeting Hoartrap’s belly as he barked furiously at the wizard. Hoartrap squealed, slipping backward on the ice, and it was almost funny, seeing the gigantic devil-eater knocked onto his big ass by an average-sized dog… except where Choplicker and Hoartrap were concerned nothing was ever funny. Hoartrap sat sprawled on the ground, ink-runed hands hovering on either side of Choplicker’s long snout as the devil growled, low and deep, holding the sorcerer’s gaze.

  “Come on, Chop, time to go,” Zosia called, trying to project an authority she no longer felt. Even though the devil was bound to her here, on the edge of the Gate, they wouldn’t be here for very much longer. Choplicker’s growl abruptly became a plaintive whine as he looked over his shoulder at her, and she got the impression that he was actively fucking with Hoartrap. “Now, Chop. Don’t tell me you’re not excited to finally get me into a Gate.”

  Choplicker barked, whipping around so fast his tail snapped Hoartrap in the nose. The Touch picked himself up off the ground with as much dignity as he could muster, but his adversary had already forgotten him, the devil playfully pouncing around Zosia and Boris. He would drop his front legs and snout to the ground while sticking his butt up and wagging his tail, then feint toward them, yipping happily. Zosia indulged him a little, swatting his back when he flew past her, but Boris cringed and flinched every time the devil rushed him. Hard to blame him.

  “Farewell, then, dear friend, and may this trip to Diadem be more effective in the long term than your last one was,” said Hoartrap, brushing slush off his bottom. “Forgive me if I don’t shake your hand, but I’m rather attached to it and don’t want your devil taking it off. If you want my advice I’d invest in a far shorter lead than you’ve allowed him thus far.”

  “I could say the same thing about you and Ji-hyeon, though I’m no longer so sure wh
o’s got the leash and who’s wearing the collar,” said Zosia. “See you tomorrow?”

  “If all goes according to plan,” said Hoartrap with a bow. “And with so simple a scheme, what could possibly go amiss?”

  “Let’s hope we don’t find out,” said Zosia, too concerned with the enormity of the next few minutes to worry much about tomorrow’s invasion. Would that she lived long enough to do so… “Ready, Boris?”

  Boris looked at her. Looked at Hoartrap. Looked at Choplicker. Looked at the Gate. Looked back at Choplicker. And doubled over, puking up his dinner biscuits all over his pink suede boots. Choplicker moseyed over for a snack but Zosia shooed him away. That gave Hoartrap a final giggle, at least, and then his battered bulk turned away into the night, a spirit fleeing from the Gate into a softer darkness. Choplicker sat down by Zosia’s side, his frantic tail whipping up a slurry behind them, and she scratched his ears as he looked up at her, smiling.

  “Through the Gate, sneak past any guards on the Diadem side, raise a rebel army, start a diversionary fire at dawn,” said Zosia. “That order. Easy.”

  “You think so?” asked Boris, wiping his mouth on his muff.

  “Not really,” said Zosia, taking a loose hold of the nape of Choplicker’s neck with one hand and reaching for Boris with the other. “But why risk your life for something easy?”

  “I wish I had some good last words, but I used ’em all up the last time I thought you were gonna kill me,” said Boris, taking her hand.

  “Last words are for losers,” said Zosia, imagining she could feel the damaged crown pulsing through her backpack, as though she were a fairysong witch who had hidden her heart in the circlet. Her legs were shaking so badly she wondered if she’d even be able to take the final few steps to the Gate, when the time came… and then, as if he knew her secret heart even better than she did, Choplicker plunged ahead into the abyss, and clinging to his pelt, Zosia followed him in.