Zoisa took the flask back and emptied it before continuing. “You know he would never spar with me? Ever. Said he was worried he’d mess up my pretty face. So then I told him I only slept with those who had bested me in combat, and the next fucking day he had the dull irons out, pushing me to duel him. After that I had to fight him not to fight him, if you follow, but he never got lucky enough to beat me, praise the gods of steel. So that’s what we had—a very, very sick relationship, contrary to whatever lies he told.”
“He never said anything happened,” said Purna. She seemed as heartbroken as old Maroto, lying in the dust. Nothing less sexy than sadness. “I just thought he was being discreet. Romantic.”
“Oh, girl,” said Zosia ruefully. “Maroto’s been called a lot of things in his day, by me and others, but I don’t think he’s ever been accused of either discretion or romance.”
“Shit,” said Purna, slumping a little. “Shit and damn. I really wanted to… Never mind.”
“Really wanted to what, patch things up between us? You can’t patch something that doesn’t exist to be rent in the first place. And if you thought enticing me into some devil’s three-way with you and him was ever going to—”
“Ew, no!” said Purna. “I do not want that!”
“So if we’re done talking about him, then…” said Zosia, giving it one last go and sliding her hand back onto Purna’s leg. Even a low fire can be banked up after all.
“Shit shit shit,” said Purna, scrambling to her feet. Her cheeks were as red as Maroto’s had been when she’d rebuked his kiss. “Shit! Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to, you’re even hotter than I imagined. But… shit!”
“Purna,” said Zosia, “take a deep breath, now. This doesn’t have anything to do with anything; we’re just two women talking in a tent.”
“If you and he had… even once, that would be one thing!” said Purna, grabbing her hood from beside Zosia. “But I can’t, not now. Of course he can be a creep, and a jerk, and a hundred other things, but he’s also my best friend. I can’t do this, much as I’d like to. It would kill him. Shit!”
“You don’t owe him anything,” said Zosia, but she could tell the girl was long gone, even as she stood there kneading her cloak in her hands. “Neither of us do.”
“No,” said Purna, all her boldness gone. “Please don’t tell him we even… Bye!”
And just like that, Zosia was alone in her tent again. This was getting really fucking old—she’d never had so much trouble getting laid in her life. It was coming up on a year… from the first time on, had she ever gone a year? A month? Not a week, if she could help it.
On the bright side, according to Ji-hyeon the Imperial regiment pursuing the Cobalt Company was none other than the Fifteenth out of Azgaroth, led by Colonel Hjortt himself, so as far as the vengeance game went, Zosia couldn’t have prayed for a better hand. She was keenly looking forward to seeing the thumbless murderer again, and breaking the shit out of her oath to kill him last—him, and his entire cavalry, and his big war nun bodyguard. It was almost too perfect an offering, a regular Kypck reunion.
Had Indsorith sent her pawns here as a sacrifice to appease Zosia, as though she were some ravenous devil that could be sated? Doubtful. It was far more likely the Fifteenth Regiment was set out as bait to draw her into a trap, but that was just fine with her—the Crimson Queen of Samoth wasn’t the only one who could sacrifice an army for the sake of a personal vendetta, and if the Cobalt Company had a rough time of it when the battle raged, that was a small price to pay for vengeance against those who had killed her husband, her people. Then, long after the smoke had cleared and no sign was found of Cold Cobalt, the queen might be alone one night in her throne room, when an unexpected guest joined her…
Choplicker whined, and Zosia reached for Purna’s smoldering cigar butt to throw at him when she saw the real cause of his outburst: Hoartrap had appeared in the opposite corner of her tent, smiling like a freshly freed devil.
“Just when you think it can’t get any worse,” said Zosia. “Don’t tell me you’ve learned how to materialize out of thin air.”
“Would that it were so,” said Hoartrap, wiping dust off the front of his robes. “I unpin tent posts and squirm under just like everyone else, I’m afraid. The key is doing so when the occupants are too busy to notice.”
“There’s mercy in hell, then,” said Zosia. “I don’t suppose you can conjure some booze?”
“Ah, now there is a trick within my talents,” said Hoartrap, removing a small bottle from the cavernous pockets of his saffron robes. “Care for a puff as well as a tipple?”
“Since it worked out so well the last time, why not?” said Zosia. With a sigh, she looked at Choplicker. “Fine. You’re off until he is, but if I catch one word that you’ve been into any mischief at all—”
But the devil didn’t wait to hear the rest of her oath, shooting out of the tent and away from the wizard as fast as his legs could carry him.
“I don’t think he missed me,” said Hoartrap. “A pity, I’ve thought of him often since you both disappeared.”
“All right, Hoartrap.” Zosia hopped up from her cot in a quick, pantherlike motion that she’d be feeling in her hips for hours to come. She strutted toward him with a bravado that felt as patently false as Purna’s, hoping it wouldn’t come down to her and Hoartrap. Hoping for once Choplicker hadn’t strayed far. “I need you to be totally straight with me for the first time in your miserable life. Did you put those Imperials onto me at Kypck, or was it the queen? Lie to me and it’ll be a lot worse for you.”
“I never even suspected you were alive,” said Hoartrap, patting a hand to his breast. “I swear it on all the devils I’ve eaten. Don’t think I didn’t check, either! Choplicker kept you well hidden—did you manage to bind him a second time, or did he do that out of love?”
“He tricked me,” said Zosia, relieved to feel all the fight slough out of her. “Kept me hidden, all right, just as long as it suited his needs. Wondered why he stuck around for nigh on twenty years after I offered him an out, and now I know—he turned it down. You ever hear of a devil saying no to an easy wish?”
“No,” said Hoartrap, scratching at a boil on his bullish neck. “Which makes one wonder if the wording of your wish was such that he honored it without your notice, and is indeed a free devil. There are songs of ancients in Emeritus who befriended devils, rather than binding them.”
“If that were true Choplicker could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted,” said Zosia. “There’s a cheery thought.”
In a great swirl of robes, dust, and mighty-thewed legs, Hoartrap sat down on his ass in the middle of the tent. From an inner pocket he removed the pipe Zosia had carved him thirty years past from a black gnarl of nigh-petrified oak he had brought her, claiming to have dredged it from a swamp. It took ages for that oak to dry, and the peaty bouquet of the bog never quite left the wood, but Hoartrap seemed delighted in the result. The downward curve of its yellow horn stem was inlaid with leopard palm where it joined the black oak shank, the wood carrying downward another inch before swooping back up and out into a bowl shaped like a half-bloomed tulip. The rough stratifications of the unique wood made it look less like a pipe and more like a grotesque snail shell or ebon stinkhorn. As he packed the piece from a ratty leather purse, he said, “We have so, so much to discuss, old friend.”
“Mmmm,” said Zosia, retrieving from the table the bowl she’d packed earlier. She remembered how touched Maroto had been when she’d given it to him at that kaldi house back in Linkensterne, just a year or two before he helped her become Queen of Samoth, Keeper of the Crimson Empire. “Another time, old Touch, I’m about talked out at present. You amenable to a more meditative meeting?”
“Oh sure,” said Hoartrap jovially. “You know I love nothing more than sitting and staring silently at you for hours, occasionally murmuring portentously.”
“So long as you don’t talk,” said Zosia, canting her pip
e to accept the floating flame Hoartrap offered her. Light. Puff. Tamp. Light. Puff.
That order.
As far as plans went, this one succeeded wildly, and Zosia settled back on her bed with a groan. What a fucking day. The best part was that even after staying up all night with Ji-hyeon planning strategy, even with the better terrain, she was still unconvinced any of their tactics could overcome a much larger force with military experience—the Imperials had the numbers, like they always did, and even with that green kid Colonel Hjortt leading them, the new Cobalts were still in for one tearjerker of a song. She had helped talk Ji-hyeon into throwing down here and now because if the Cobalts carried the day, she could have her vengeance on both the cavalry that had slaughtered Kypck and the colonel she had foolishly let slip through her fingers, but if the Cobalts couldn’t pull this off, it might be one of her last days on earth.
And how was she spending it? Sexually frustrated, smoking a pipe that she had thought peerless when she’d carved it but now saw it for the crude work that it was, a pipe that was burning far too hot due to the Oriorentine blend having dried out in her purse. Her only companion was the evilest man she’d ever met, and adding insult to injury, his bottle contained crème de violette and his pipe smelled more flowery still, packed with a mixture of astringent, powerful tambo and some soapy brown flakes that made the whole tent reek like a geriatric’s perfumed undergarments. Cold Zosia, former Queen of Samoth, this is what a year of hard work and heartache gets you: exactly what you deserve.
Just like old times, sure enough.
After a substantial interval of pungent contemplation, Hoartrap broke his promised silence. “Want to go to a party later?”
CHAPTER
15
There had been times when Domingo hated his son. Not the sort of thing any father cares to admit, but there it was. No matter which way you sliced it, when you got to the bone of the boy you found marrow of the purest yellow. Efrain Hjortt wasn’t just a coward, either, he was also a weakling. And a sniveler. Hard as Domingo had tried to help the lad become worthy of his mother’s house, firm as the Azgarothian Academy had been with the boy, nothing seemed to help—he had the spine of a jellied eel, and the vicious selfishness of a living member of that species. Away on campaign for months at a stretch, if not longer, Domingo saw the boy grow in great bounds, but never to discernible benefit. Each time he returned and saw Efrain the boy’s sneering smile was broader, as was his belly, but while he eventually became somewhat adequate with a sword, there was no doubt this indolent teenager would never be fit for commanding anything more important than a dinner party. He wanted to blame his sister-in-law Lupitera for retarding Efrain’s maturity, he wanted to blame Concilia for casting off her family and moving to Trve, but at his heart Domingo knew that his son’s weakness stemmed from neither the influence of his aunt nor the absence of his mother.
Yet still he had told himself his son would come into his own, that all he needed was that push into the saddle. And Domingo Hjortt, decorated Colonel of the Crimson Empire, Baron of Cockspar, a shrewd ruler in peace and war alike, was totally, utterly wrong. For most of the boy’s life, Domingo had vacillated between lying to himself about Efrain’s quality and despising the child for possessing none. What a waste.
Now, as Domingo lay broken and battered in the back of a wagon, bouncing down a seemingly eternal mountain road, he was done with delusions about Efrain, and all that remained was hatred. Efrain was the reason he was here, and thus Efrain was the reason his left hip had shattered under a horned wolf’s headbutt. Efrain was the reason he’d lost all feeling in his right arm. Efrain was the reason half his head was so swollen from slamming face-first into the ground that he still couldn’t see out of one eye, a full week after the attack. Efrain was a chump who never should have been in charge of a modest kitchen, let alone a regiment, but that was no excuse for getting himself wrapped up in ridiculous plots and then murdered for his trouble.
Really, how did any ranking officer get himself killed, in this day and age? Once again Efrain had scraped new lows, bringing his aged father down with him, and the only way for Domingo to restore his honor was to avenge his son. He was as bound by familial duty to catch Efrain’s killer as Efrain had been to lead the Fifteenth, come to think it, both men destroying themselves in the name of the other, and there was another nasty bump in the road to aid him in shedding a few tears over the tragedy of it all. If only Lupitera had been here to witness it all, she’d have given him a standing ovation—the shows down at the Iglesia Mendoza didn’t have a red herring on the drama of the Hjortts.
Unlike most of those tragedies, this bit of overwrought theater would have a happy ending: drenched in blood, the old hero unmasks his enemies, and executes most of the cast. His maneuver with the Immaculate prince turned out to be unneeded, but then a little comedy to break things up always made the serious bits hit harder. To think he had actually been worried that the pope was wrong, that all the rumors were false and Zosia was as dead as she deserved to be. That this new Cobalt Company was just a band of phonies, led by the runaway Immaculate girl that Prince Byeong-gu had been chasing. Funnier still, even in his current condition Domingo was relieved to know that the Stricken Queen had indeed cheated death, that she was the one who had murdered his son, that she was the one who had ordered the horned wolf attack on his camp. Even without catching her old Villain Maroto sneaking past his tent, Domingo would have recognized that insane tactic as bearing the stamp of Zosia—no one else in all the songs of today, tomorrow, or yesterday would have dared such a deranged, suicidal maneuver.
Much as it hurt to admit it, he could learn a trick or two from his blue-haired archenemy—her gambit had paid off. Even if she had sacrificed a few soldiers in the course of luring the monsters down from the mountain, the Fifteenth had lost over a hundred foot soldiers, fifty-some archers and gunners, and their two best witchborn guards… and that wasn’t even getting into the Ninth’s losses, or the horses the retreating wolves had carried off when their blood thirst was sated, or the panic that the attack had caused. Another fifty soldiers had deserted that very night, and running them down and hanging them had wasted a full day they should have been on the march. How do you wage war against such madness? Countering with some deranged, devilish maneuvers of his own was just the thing to bring Zosia down for good, and make it take this time… Not like he had much to lose, unable to ride a horse of his own and needing an anathema to help him so much as take a piss. As the Burnished Chain became increasingly popular in the Azgarothian court as it did everywhere else, Domingo’s insistent hewing to the godless ways of his ancestors was viewed as increasingly eccentric, so it would probably come as quite the relief to everyone back home when they heard he had destroyed the Cobalt Company with the help of the church.
“Sir?” Splayed in his deep nest of padding and pillow in the wagon bed and unable to move his neck without extreme distress, Domingo kept his gaze on the crimson twilight leaching into the high peak looming over them but knew who had ridden up beside him without needing to see her.
“What is it, Shea? I’m a very busy man.”
“The witchborn scouts? They’ve returned with news.”
Domingo closed his eye, speaking with more patience than he thought he possessed. “And what is the news, Shea?”
“The Cobalt Company, sir? We’ve found them. They appear to be fortifying a camp?”
“Where?” Domingo’s heart soared into the darkening sky; he had anticipated another agonizing pursuit all over the Star, but maybe twenty-odd years on, Zosia was as tired of running as he was of chasing her.
“Where the road comes down into the plains? They cut north as soon as the ground evened out enough for their wagons. Their camp is where the foothills back into some famous mountain… It’s called the Lark’s Tongue?”
“I’ve ridden past it,” said Domingo, remembering, remembering… “Good position. Not great, but good. Steep ridges come out on either side of
where they’ll camp at the base, so we won’t be able to flank them, but that also means they’ll have nowhere to run—the mountain’s too sheer to safely climb away.” Thinking, thinking… “Smarter than I thought. The Cobalt Company’s burning their boats so the volunteers can’t flee if the battle takes a turn. She’s transforming her little blue mice into cornered rats. Just when I think I’ve got you figured out…”
“Sir?”
“Just pondering, Shea. A colonel mustn’t be afraid of a good ponder from time to time.” It wasn’t right, her digging in for a last stand already. Zosia was changing up on him, so he would have to do the same to stay ahead. “How far are we from their camp? At earliest?”
“If we go the usual extra hour tonight? We’re overlooking the plains now, so we should be down by late afternoon tomorrow, and from the foothills another solid day will take us within engaging distance. But we’re still waiting on the all clear from Diadem, and the last owlbat we received from Colonel Waits said that the Third are still most of a week out from—”
“If I wanted to know where the Thaoan regiment was I’d have asked, Captain, and as far as the queen’s written permission to engage the enemy goes, I daresay it’s a bit late to get hung up on every formality,” said Domingo, his mind swooping through the haze of time and memory and toward the silhouette of the Lark’s Tongue overlooking the Witchfinder Plains. Cold Zosia wasn’t the only one who could pull a trick to surprise the devils, and while he certainly hoped the Black Pope’s weapon proved as devastating as advertised, a little insurance never hurt. “Inform the men we’ll be stopping in half an hour for dinner.”
“Very good, sir, an early night will still put us—”
A Crown for Cold Silver Page 47
