Except Sullen was singing songs to himself again, wasn’t he? They weren’t out here because of the Faceless Mistress or Cobalt Zosia or Hoartrap’s compass or the Jackal witch’s post or even Uncle Craven, easy a scapegoat as the quick-legged beggar made. They were here, in this devilish gravebog, because Sullen had taken them here. Keun-ju had ridden a pony into a pit full of devils because instead of being the leader his friends needed him to be and turning them all back to find a different route, Sullen had gone against his better instincts and basically ordered Diggelby to blunder on ahead—and now he paced in an overgrown mud puddle, hunting simpleminded devils and blaming remote gods and sorcerers for his own damn stupidity. He had defied the command of the Faceless Mistress, and nothing had happened, but as soon as he started telling trusting people what to do things took a bad turn in a hurry.
Fuck Maroto, that had been Purna’s odd but satisfying cry before the battle with the devil-ridden ancients, but being real, who was more to blame for their current situation? Who had used his influence to pressure Ji-hyeon into putting together this posse? Who had basically killed the smartest, noblest, most clever-tongued man Sullen had ever met? Fuck Maroto? No.
“Fuck Sullen!” He shouted it to the too-still waters, the too-quiet trees, remembering Keun-ju’s downcast eyes as he recited one of his delightful poems. Hazelnut eyes he would never see again, above a veil that had begun to drive Sullen to distraction, wondering what exactly the man’s nose and mouth looked like beneath it. And there at the end, when he could have at least joined his fast friend in a worthy death, he’d convinced himself that the turtle or fish he’d glimpsed out in the distant water was that very veil, and so he’d done the exact same thing he hated his uncle for doing when the going got grim: he’d run away, instead of trying to help.
“Fuck! Sullen! Fuuuuuuuck!”
“If that’s your come-on, it needs some work.” Sullen felt his knees go weak, the voice of the dead man drifting down from the branches of the Haunted Forest… but then he turned and saw it was no ghost nor deviltry. Or if it was, he didn’t care, not now, and weary as he’d been moments before Sullen bounded over and scrambled up the precarious bank, swift as any snow lion pursuing its quarry.
As Sullen gained the wooded high ground, Keun-ju detached himself from where he’d been leaning against a cypress, his dark lips and bright teeth shining in the moonlight. He’d lost his veil, and Sullen saw he’d misjudged the man as simply being pretty before; he could now see the smooth jaw that attached to the high cheekbones, the dimple at the corner of his smile. He was dead handsome, not something Sullen usually noticed in other men, or if he noticed it, not something that made his heart lurch around in his chest like a snared hare.
“You’re… alive,” said Sullen, hating what a fool he must sound like as soon as the words left his mouth. All hearken to the pronouncements of Simple Sullen, Speaker of Things Plain as the Crescent Moon Overhead. Then, relief and less clearly defined emotions butting into self-consciousness and confusion, he asked, “How long have you been up here, watching me stomp around the swamp?”
“I can barely see you now,” said Keun-ju, sounding about as mixed-up as Sullen felt. “I heard a lot of splashing and grunting, but until you started propositioning the night I had no idea it was you. I… I didn’t know if you got out of that pit, I thought Princess might have crushed you, or worse.”
“Yeah, what was that?” asked Sullen. “I mean, you saved my life, so I ain’t complaining, but damn, man, what were you trying with that?”
“I misjudged the depth,” said Keun-ju, that warmth Sullen had thought he’d heard in the boy’s voice now decidedly cooler. “I thought I could ride her out and around, drawing those things away from you and the others. But the edge of that pool gave way, and, well…”
“Oh,” said Sullen, that making some kind of sense, at least. “So wait, you weren’t even trying to mess up that one that grabbed me in the water?”
“A happy accident,” said Keun-ju, looking out over the moonlit swamp with a shiver. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. I was sure… I thought it was over for me, but it just kept… it just kept happening, and I never got away. It was like in a nightmare, when you’re stuck somewhere and can’t get out? Like time has stopped… I’ve been in fights, bad ones, the Lark’s Tongue, others, but it’s never… it’s never been like that. When I jumped off Princess and saw them coming up to catch me, and then I went under, it was like this hungry ceiling above me in the dark water, and I knew I was dead, I knew it, and… Ugh.”
“I know,” said Sullen, wrapping his arms around Keun-ju as the Immaculate shuddered in his wet clothes, but as warm and good as it felt, the smaller man quickly pulled away, making Sullen wonder what had compelled him to embrace his friend in the first place. He tried to apologize, but Keun-ju was already doing the same, so they said it in tandem, neither looking at the other:
“Sorry.”
“I thought I saw you swim free, but I wasn’t sure,” said Sullen, trying to undo some of the awkwardness by focusing on the facts. “Must’ve been one devil of a race, outswimming those things.”
“If there is one thing we know how to do on the Isles, it’s swim,” said Keun-ju, finally looking back at Sullen as the moon inched over enough for both of their faces to catch the light. “We certainly don’t learn to ride well, as demonstrated. If they hadn’t been so busy with poor Princess, I… I don’t want to think about it. The only reason they didn’t get me when I first went under was all the lumber attached to their backs—they were stretching down for me, claws everywhere, but the water’s deeper out there, and I’d sunk too far for them to reach. Every time they dove after me the wood made them float back up just before they caught me, and then I went as far down as I could, swimming hard as I could, knowing that the first time I came up for air might be my death… but when I did, they were behind me, so I swam on, and as soon as I got to shore I tried doubling back to where I thought you were. But it got too dark.”
“Damn,” said Sullen, reckoning that such a chase was about the worst thing he could imagine, and seeing that the Immaculate still had his cherished sword on his belt, he said, “I left my damn spear back there after carrying it clear down from Flintland and almost losing it to opossum devils, and you gotta make me look bad by swimming a dozen leagues with that on your hip.”
“I really don’t mean to be such an epic hero,” said Keun-ju, getting that proud tone he put on whenever the weapon came up. Ever since he’d explained the four-tiger sword’s rich historical significance as a blade whose Ugrakari maker traced her lineage back to the Sunken Kingdom, Sullen found Keun-ju’s attitude about it kind of endearing instead of obnoxious.
“Yeah, well that’s my good example rubbing off on you,” said Sullen with a wink. “Hard not to be epic around a Horned Wolf. Maybe when the time comes we’ll sing this song together, huh?”
Keun-ju grinned up at Sullen in the moonlight, and seeing his sharp, mud-spattered features unveiled at last, Sullen felt as though a glacier had just broken loose from the fjord of his heart. Or something like that; anyway, he wasn’t thinking so much as feeling just then, and what he felt rocked him from his toes to his nose. Keun-ju had lived, despite all odds, but they had not anticipated this disastrous day, and they could not predict the next one. Old Black stand watch, they might not even live to see the morning, if worse devils stalked these woods… and so that was why Sullen leaned slowly down, giving Keun-ju all the time he might need to flee, and when he didn’t, kissed him softly on the lips.
Well, because of all that, and because he really, really wanted to.
Keun-ju’s eyes looked like they were about to burst out of his head and he stayed stiff as the cypress behind him, so Sullen backed off with the quickness, apologizing… only to have a smaller but firmer hand grab his chin and direct him back in for another try. Delicate, fleeting kisses melted into longer, firmer ones, lips parting slightly, Keun-ju tasting as sweet as his poetry
even after a dip in a devil-soaked swamp, and when Sullen slipped his tongue into his friend’s mouth Keun-ju parried it with his own. They leaned into one another for an hour or an instant, it was hard to say, and when Keun-ju gently drew back, his eyes were no longer wide with surprise, but sparkling with something else.
“I… I’ve never done that before,” said Sullen, and seeing the incredulous look on Keun-ju’s face, clarified. “With another guy, I mean.”
“Neither have I,” breathed Keun-ju, and in the inscrutable way of the flesh, hearing that made Sullen’s heart jump, along with the sudden fullness under his skirt.
“Was it… was it okay?”
“You’ve obviously been taking lessons from Ji-hyeon, princess of the sloppy smooches, but it’s nothing we can’t sharpen up with more practice,” said Keun-ju, but light as he’d said it the invocation of Ji-hyeon’s name gave them both a small start. For a spell there it had seemed like the future was as irrelevant as the past, but now, not so much. Not sure how else to handle this sudden pall, Sullen reached out and brushed Keun-ju’s throat with his fingers, and that seemed to do the trick—the Immaculate sighed happily, and raised his mouth the slightest fraction as the Flintlander came in for another kiss.
And froze.
They were being watched, from just through the forest. Sullen couldn’t see who or what was spying on him, but he knew, his eyes jumping straight to a patch of shadow that was all the darker for the moonbeams scattered through the trees. Instead of delivering his lips to Keun-ju’s he held up a finger before them, then pointed it down at the pommel of his friend’s sword.
“Just gotta piss is all,” Sullen loudly announced as casual as he could, and pretended to randomly blunder out of the moonlight’s glare, so he could see who or what lurked just ahead… and laughed when he saw her, turning back to Keun-ju with a grin. “It’s just Purna! How you—”
But the words died in this throat, and what a miserable death they died, too. It wasn’t Purna. What he had taken to be her horned hood poking above the underbrush stepped out from the magnolias, growling low in its throat, and for the first time in his life Sullen saw a real live fucking horned wolf.
And emerging from the shadows behind it was the only thing less welcome than a horned wolf: a Horned Wolf, dressed for war, sun-knife raised, stance low. Unlike Sullen, the tall huntress still had her spear in her off hand.
Behind him, Keun-ju’s four-tiger sword gave the faintest hiss as it left his scabbard, and in the stillness of the night it sounded as loud as a temple bell tolling out through the wood. Knowing he had only one chance to stop his assassin, Sullen went for his own sun-knife. Despite how slow time had seemed earlier that eve, things now began to happen very quickly in the Haunted Forest.
CHAPTER
22
It was not yet light when Domingo was awoken by Cobalt guards, rolled onto a stretcher, and carried out into the blasting chill that slid down the Lark’s Tongue. There they assisted him into the straw-filled bed of a wagon, and in the bobbing light of the lantern pole he saw that his new bosom buddy Hoartrap the Touch drove the cart. Weirdos and wagons had become the two constants in Domingo’s life… if you could even call it that anymore.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” said Hoartrap, turning back to look at Domingo. “Your saber’s under the hay there, if you like I can stop and help you put it on?”
“No, damn it,” said Domingo; the only thing he hated more than the witch’s infantilizing was his charity. Rooting around under the straw with his good hand until he found it, Domingo felt a tremor pass through him, from braided hilt to callused palm. Just having the weapon in his hand invigorated him, even if he might never recover enough to stand and use it again. “I suppose you expect me to thank you for it?”
“I wasn’t getting my hopes up,” said Hoartrap, turning back to the pony rolling them steadily down through the camp. Propped up as he was, Domingo could see the camp must be almost ready, the motley soldiers flashing their allegiance on cobalt-colored scarves, hats, and shields where tabards or banners were absent. It would have been a nostalgic sight, all these grim-faced youths and grimmer-faced veterans preparing for a predawn assault, if not for the appalling fact that almost every soldier they passed was hitting a bottle or bowl.
“I never would’ve stood for that, I tell you,” Domingo told the back of Hoartrap’s saffron hood. “A tot of grappa to celebrate victory is one thing, but getting loaded before the march is even on? I wouldn’t stand for it.”
Hoartrap cocked his head as though he had something smart to say, but then relaxed back on the board without comment. Something was gnawing at the warlock, that much was obvious, otherwise he would’ve leaped at the easy opening Domingo had left him. He would have pointed out how Domingo had granted his soldiers something very strong indeed the morning before he ordered them through the Gate, so why shouldn’t General Ji-hyeon allow something a little more mundane? The difference was that these soldiers were probably enjoying their morning drunk more than the Fifteenth had appreciated their Chainite anointment, and once they reached the Gate they’d be going through voluntarily.
Not all, of course, not all—even here in the Cobalt Company fools weren’t that thick on the ground. Many of the mercenaries would stay behind, releasing Waits, Wheatley, and the rest to the Thaoans in exchange for a pardon, which might be honored when the Meshuggans arrived, or might not. General Ji-hyeon had supposedly argued that taking their chances with the Imperial regiments would be every bit as dicey as going through the Gate, but evidently not all had agreed.
Not surprising, that. When Hoartrap had first asked Domingo if he wished to be left in his tent for the Thaoans to recover or brought along with the Cobalts through the Gate, into Diadem, it had seemed an absurd question, completely out of order, and he had almost declined… but then he thought of lying in that cot, disgraced and destroyed, waiting for no less an officer than Colonel Waits herself to decide what to do with him. And then waiting for her to write down her order, since she probably wouldn’t be saying much these days, and afterward going to whatever Chain-mandated cell awaited him, if not the stake.
Or even worse, what if the new junta hailed him as a war hero for initiating the ritual that had sacrificed his regiment? What if he lived for many more years as an invalid in Cockspar, knowing that despite the speech he’d given Waits, despite what he knew in his heart, when faced with a tough call he capitulated to the Burnished Chain, the same as everyone else? What if that frigid, damp, smelly tent was the last stop on his military career, and after that came nothing but ass-kissing his most hated enemies, people he despised even more than the woman who had killed both his son and his king? Not that he had cared much more for old King Kaldruut than he had for young Efrain, the regent as dotty as the boy was sloppy, but the principle was what mattered, always the principle.
Faced with such unspeakable fates or the minor matter of accompanying the Cobalt Company into a Gate, he chose the only sensible option. A colonel shouldn’t order his officers to do anything he wouldn’t do himself, if needs must, and if he’d sent Captain Shea into that Gate, then by blood and thunder he’d follow after her, wherever it led. Even when Hoartrap had furiously burst into his tent last night and told him of the last-minute change in destination, Domingo was barely able to muster much disappointment. He would have preferred to die in Diadem, but so long as he fell with two fingers raised to the Burnished Chain he’d come out better than he’d expected, and better than he deserved. Besides, he highly doubted even as witchy a bounder as Hoartrap the Touch could safely guide them into one Gate and out another, or else the Cobalts would have tried this tactic twenty-five years earlier, so whether the goal was Diadem or Othean scarcely mattered, since they’d probably never arrive—the point was that a noble military suicide was better than a limp surrender.
Maybe Waits had been right about him after all; Domingo never could accept defeat. No wonder he’d basically murdered his only son by forcing h
im into a command he was never cut out for—Domingo would prefer Efrain die as a miserable young colonel than live on as a happy old politician or scholar, and that was exactly what he had gotten. Who said wishes don’t come true?
The wagon stopped, but Domingo couldn’t see over the riding board to the cause. The sky seemed even darker than when they’d set out, but torches burned all around them, stretching out into the night—peering about, it looked like their wagon was afloat in a sea of candles. Hopping down from the board, Hoartrap strolled to the back of the wagon, but even flat on the ground he loomed over Domingo.
“Time for the big event,” said Hoartrap. “I’ll send someone back to drive you through once we’re ready. You should be able to hear the general’s big speech from here, which I imagine Fennec spent all night writing for her. As soon as that’s in the bag I let the devils out of mine, and awaaaay we go.”
“I’ve never been to Othean,” said Domingo, wondering just what manner of monsters were besieging the Immaculates and frowning as he realized that in a best-case scenario where this Gate trick actually worked, he would soon find out for himself. Whatever they were, Empress Ryuki couldn’t possibly hate them much more than she loathed the person who had assassinated her son, for he was a plain old mortal, same as she. He imagined what sort of reaction it would garner if he casually confessed to the crime during the formal introductions. Probably not the sort of impression he needed to be making, even though he was no longer feeling great about having so expertly framed Ji-hyeon to take the fall. “Never dreamed I’d be saving Immaculate asses instead of kicking them.”
A Blade of Black Steel Page 51
