“I went back for them, Zosia, I did.” Maroto closed his eyes, gritted his teeth. “Three days later. Took me that many nights of lying awake all night, hearing Da screaming in my ears while my sister slept like a babe, that many days of folk finally treating me with respect around the village, to figure out what you’ve known since I first started talking, what I’d known when I’d quit them the first time—the Horned Wolves are fucking crazy. And crazy as I was right then, I wasn’t crazy enough to ever be right with that kind of bullshit. So I left. Again. For good. But I ran all the way back to the Jackal People’s lands before I did.”
The cigarillo had gone out in his fingers and Maroto flicked it away.
“I figured I’d give them… an apology, if they were dead, or take them with me, if they’d managed to live. I prayed, Zosia, for the only time in my whole fucking life, I actually prayed they’d lived out those nights, prayed to my ancestor Old Black, prayed to the Fallen Mother, prayed to darker things best left unnamed—anyone who would listen. Even told Crumbsnatcher I’d let him go if I got back and they were waiting for me, offered him his freedom if I trotted onto the battlefield and even just my nephew was sitting there, alive and hale and able to come with me. Should’ve known when the rat didn’t take the cheese that it was hopeless, but I prayed on…
“The lions and vultures had been all over that field. Da and Sullen weren’t the only ones whose bodies were gone. And I knew if I’d worked up the courage to do what I knew was right a few days earlier, they’d be alive. I could have kept them safe. So I said a few empty words, shed a few guilty tears, and said good-bye to the Savannahs. Some Horned Wolves came after me near the border, trying to cut me down so I couldn’t shame them twice by leaving again, but they couldn’t catch me. I hit the Body of the Star and never looked back.”
Maroto took the bottle Zosia offered him and drained the whole thing, not noticing it was one of Hassan’s nasty sour ales until the contents were in his belly.
“Who saved them, then?” Zosia asked. “You know that much?”
“They saved themselves, I guess.” Maroto smiled across at Sullen, a real warm smile, but the kid just stood and walked off into the night. “Sounds like Sullen dragged Da all the way back to the village as I was getting up the moxie to leave, and then they got back right after I left to look for them. Wide as the Savannahs are, we missed each other, two riders in a fog going different ways. When they returned, the clan couldn’t very well deny them their place at the fires, seeing as they’d pulled themselves back on their own, but I imagine it wasn’t the welcomest way for Sullen to come up. Horned Wolves don’t appreciate being proven wrong. And now they’re here. That’s all I’ve got.”
“That’s enough,” she said, and when he felt behind his ear for the cigarillo he’d already smoked she passed him her briar. Zosia was always good that way, too good to an arsehole like Maroto. Another storm of wizard fire exploded in his chest as he realized her pipe was the same tankard shape as the one she’d made him, the one he’d lost or sold or broken while he’d been so strung out he hadn’t known his arse from a hole in his heart—Zosia had carved two identical pipes, then, one for herself and one for him, something she’d never done for any of the other Villains, something he had never even noticed, too busy eyeing her haunches or tips to look at her personal briar. She had cared about him, even if it wasn’t in the way he’d hoped. Still did, to see the emotion on her face as he put his lips to the black stem, shivered to taste her saliva and the tang of tar on the end of the pipe. The graveworm did its dance in his belly, from one pole to the other, happy then sad then happy again.
“You need to talk to them, Maroto. You tell it to them like you did to me, not a word out of place, and you’ll need to come up with another name for that kid, because Sullen won’t suit him anymore.”
“Yeah, I will. Tomorrow, when I’m clearheaded.” Of course, being off the bugs so long he’d be all kinds of hungover, but another worm from Diggelby would help get him up and able—only cure for a graveworm before bed was another one for breakfast. After that, though, he’d be done with ’em for good. He’d promised Purna, and a man has to keep his promises. “What about you, Zee? Never heard how you came up.”
“Hmmmm,” she said, not looking any more amenable to the topic now than she had the dozen times he’d tried to pry it out of her over the years.
“Hey, no need for that face.” The last thing he wanted was to spoil things, now that they were looking up. He gave her back her pipe with a final twinge. He’d smoked plenty of tubāq since losing her gift, but never from a pipe—penance for his folly, and smoking a pipe was a lot easier to give up than the bugs that had caused him to lose the dearly loved briar in the first place. “How ’bout the song of your resurrection, then? What the devils happened, Zosia? Did they lock you up in Diadem instead of icing you? Or have you been in on this new Cobalt Company scheme from the get-go, biding your time, waiting to spring from the shadows like the Allmother returned? Both?”
Shit, that hadn’t been a wise move at all—she looked even unhappier now, but with a big sigh, laid it on him: “I chickened out, Maroto, after that first year on the throne. I fled. Made it look like I died so no one could come after me. Set myself up with a new life. Our victories and our failures, my failures, I tried to put it all behind me. Should’ve known it wouldn’t work.”
She was quiet, and as much as Maroto knew she’d prefer to come to it in her own time, his mouth did its thing, as it always did, when he had the worm in him. It was the graveworm’s fault, not his. “So what, you caught wind of Fennec’s play and couldn’t resist coming out of retirement? Setting the record straight? Having one more adventure? Trust me, I can relate, even after I found out it wasn’t you leading the new army, I stuck around for my buddy Purna’s sake, and now that we’ve been up to our old exploits my taste for the stuff is coming back in a big—”
“They killed my husband, Maroto. Our whole village. Children. Animals. Everyone.”
Shit. Shit shit shit. No damned wonder she didn’t welcome his kiss, she was in mourning, she—
“I thought it might have been one of you,” she said quietly. “Not you, obviously—you were the only Villain I was sure about, Maroto. And now I’m sure it wasn’t any of the others, either. I was right from the start: Queen Indsorith went back on her word. Gave me enough time to hope it had worked, gave me enough time to relax, really invest myself in a place, in people, let me believe I had won… and then she did me just like I did her. She must have led a happy life before I became queen, before my efforts to fix the system wiped out her family, and nearly killed her, too. So when it was her turn to be queen she gave me a happy life, and a family, and… and then gave me exactly what I deserved. Just over a year ago, now.”
“Wait, what—the queen? She did that? I don’t get it…” Maroto struggled for something, anything to say. “… but I don’t need to. I know you didn’t deserve that, though, nobody deserves that.”
“No, they don’t,” said Zosia softly, looking a lot older right then. “A lesson I learned too late.”
“She double-crossed you,” said Maroto, the graveworm making him smarter, sharper. “You gave her the Crown to leave you alone, and she double-crossed you. That’s what happened.”
“Yeah,” said Zosia. “That’s it. Pretty damned simple.”
“And now you’re going to get her, right? Now you’re going to teach her what fucking wages Cold Cobalt pays a double-crosser, yeah?”
“That’s the idea,” said Zosia, scratching her silver hair. “Cold Cobalt returns, and all of Samoth trembles.”
“All of the fucking Star!” said Maroto, standing up. “We’ll make the world remember us! Make the devils shrink back into their holes! Kick the Crimson Empire’s teeth in! Yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Zosia, getting up, too, and handing him her pipe. “But in the morning. I’m dead on my feet. You want to finish this?”
“Sure, yeah,” said Maroto, ta
king it greedily, when a dire thought reasserted itself. “Except… shit.”
“Shit?”
“Shit shit shit!” Maroto wheeled around and stomped the divan, meaning to splinter it in his rage. His heel bounced off the springy seat and he fell flat on his back, his busted knee throbbing. Brays of laughter from a dozen arseholes looking to get their heads split, but score one for Maroto: he’d made Zosia smile again as she helped him up.
“You doing okay, oh conqueror of ales?”
“Yeah. No. Look, Zosia, after I heard you died, I did something stupid. Really stupid.”
“I heard you fought the queen,” said Zosia, not even trying to hide her smile. “Despite the express orders I left that my Villains were to serve her in my stead.”
“Orders don’t mean shit,” said Maroto. “I mean coming from you, of course they do, but how’d I know they weren’t fakes? Anyway, I played it all wrong—left Crumbsnatcher out of it, got her to take me on in a square duel. I won, I won. And she won, I’d pledge not to hassle her ever again. And… and…”
“And the girl can fight, can’t she?” Zosia stood on her tiptoes and kissed Maroto on the cheek. It was the first time her lips had ever voluntarily touched him, and it felt better than anything he’d ever won or stolen. “We’ll figure something out, Maroto, we always do.”
“Yeah,” he said, relieved he hadn’t wrecked the divan as he collapsed back onto it. “We always do.”
“Oh, and try not to lose that again,” Zosia said, winking at him, and it took Maroto a moment to realize she was talking about the pipe in his hand. What? No, it couldn’t be… But turning the pipe over for the first time since she’d let him hit it, he saw that the bottom of the bowl still bore the two marks she had carefully etched into the wood all those years ago: a Z, for the carver, and an M, for the intended owner. His hands started shaking so badly he nearly dropped it, and he looked up at his old friend with tear-filled eyes, wondering how in all the devils she’d found it, but not wanting to risk breaking the spell by asking.
“I’ve been a fool,” was all he could manage, but it seemed to be enough.
“Every day since I’ve known you, but then you’ve had ample company.”
“Maybe…” Maroto rocked his head back and forth, but nothing shook loose. “Maybe I’ll have a better comeback in the morning.”
“It’s really, really good to see you, Maroto,” said Zosia, turning away, but at her words the graveworm turned to ice in his belly, spreading its chill to every part of his body. He felt sick. “Sleep well, brother.”
He couldn’t respond, couldn’t do anything but cling to the pipe he didn’t deserve and sink into the divan, shaking all over. He watched her go, watched Cobalt Zosia, the woman he loved, sway over to the fire and exchange a few words with Singh and Fennec, and then disappear back into the camp. But she had been here, beside him, no vision nor ghost, but Zosia. And maybe it was the graveworm and maybe it was some sick game of the devils, now that the bargain was fulfilled, but he knew beyond any doubt at all that this was what Crumbsnatcher had given him in exchange for his freedom. Maroto was on the divan in the center of the Cobalt Company and he was simultaneously in a Pendleton stinghouse, strung out on bad bugs, pressing his lips to his devil’s velvety ear, whispering the words that had doomed them all:
“Bring her back to me. Just let me see her again and I’ll let you go. Please, please, just bring her back to me.”
And Crumbsnatcher had granted his wish, just like devils were supposed to. The rat couldn’t resurrect someone who had died—that was the one wish not even a devil could grant—but reuniting two old friends would be short work for a creature that could see into the future the way mortals look into the past. Zosia thought Queen Indsorith had ordered her soldiers to go after her as part of a long-simmering revenge plot, but Maroto was sure Indsorith had only sent her assassins because Crumbsnatcher had made the queen think it was a brilliant idea. The queen, or someone else, it scarcely mattered—whoever had decided to target Zosia and her people, they had only done so because Maroto’s devil had made them. Everybody had heard songs about devils planting evil thoughts in the minds of mortals, and even if a devil couldn’t make you do something that wasn’t in your nature, the Star was brimming with bloody-handed reavers who wouldn’t take much more than a nudge to go after a vulnerable village, the Queen of Samoth included.
Maroto was coming up on a year clean of the bugs—well, he would be, if not for tonight’s one-off—but point being, it was last autumn that he had sobered up one morning and discovered Crumbsnatcher missing. Zosia had said her husband and all their people were murdered around that time. It was the only explanation; Crumbsnatcher had burrowed into someone’s brain and made them decide to kill Zosia’s people… Hells, the executioners might not have even known it was Cobalt Zosia they were targeting.
Zosia was ready to tear the Empire apart for vengeance against Queen Indsorith, and she had just kissed Maroto on the cheek. Maroto had as good as slit the throat of Zosia’s husband when he’d loosed his devil, as good as chopped down anyone else who had died along the way. He had destroyed the world of the woman he loved more than his own life, and all because he was so fucked up on bugs he’d made a wish that no sane mortal would ask of a devil: to bring back the dead.
“Bring her back to me. Just let me see her again and I’ll let you go. Please, please, just bring her back to me.”
CHAPTER
18
Grandfather said the Old Watchers only took notice of humans when they were bored and in need of sport, and this was the same reason mortals first turned to the devils. Grandfather said it was up to shamans to interpret the words of the divine as they came down through the rustling of leadwood leaves in autumn and new grasses in spring, to unravel the whispers of the infernal from the crackling of a wildfire some hot summer’s night, or read the lacing of ice on a chamberpot some cold winter’s morn. Grandfather said when a devil spoke a mortal listened, but only a shaman could reply. Grandfather said when a god spoke only a shaman could hear, and a wise one wouldn’t talk back.
But Grandfather also said the tastiest treat under heaven was creamed honey badger, and Sullen knew for a fact that shit was nasty. And Grandfather also said the Horned Wolf way was best, that all other peoples of all other lands were wicked or corrupted or dastardly or just plain arseholes… But if that was true, and the Horned Wolves were the chosen people, why had they been so down on Sullen and Grandfather? What did it say about them, that the Horned Wolves had hated them so much they’d tried to kill them rather than just letting them go?
And sure, getting really real here, but what did it say about Sullen, that he kept deferring to Grandfather even though the old man seemed increasingly full of shit? When they’d finally found Uncle Craven and Grandfather had somehow used the opportunity to talk shit about Ji-hyeon even as he was exalting Sullen, had Sullen ripped the old baggage off his back? Other than their first night in camp he hadn’t once given Grandfather a talking-to about respecting the woman he already intended to pledge his service to, come what may with his uncle. It had always seemed easiest to just ignore his crotchety ancestor, but maybe by doing so he was just feeding the fire of Grandfather’s hubris. In any event, he wasn’t doing himself any favors, letting Grandfather poison everything with that tongue of his.
It was time to talk to the old man, Sullen decided as he walked back to their tent. Grandfather had ordered him to follow Uncle Craven that night, to see what sort of a man this “Maroto” really was. From Sullen’s reconnaissance, he seemed to be about the same as any other, still glum from his earlier shaming at the hands of Zosia, and hoping to hasten the healing process by slathering himself in drink, smoke, and companionship. Yet when Zosia had joined Maroto on his couch by the bonfire, Sullen decided he had enough to worry about for one night.
At least occupying himself with stalking his shady uncle and the woman a god had ordered him to kill took his mind off Ji-hyeon, and the retu
rn of her handsome lover.
Good for her. Good for both of them. He wanted her to be happy, after all. It’s not like it would have ever worked out, a savage wooing a princess… Except for a minute there it had seemed like the princess was intent on wooing the savage.
Sullen realized he was approaching her tent instead of his own and abruptly changed course, much as he wanted to stroll past and see if lamps were lit inside. Would it be better if they were, if the sounds of talk and laughter came to him, or if all were dark and quiet?
Anyway, he had more important things to think about. Like thwarting Zosia. That was how the Faceless Mistress had put it: thwart her. That could mean damn well anything. Didn’t have to mean murder. Then again, it might…
The rub was, he didn’t feel much compulsion to do anything, now that he’d seen the woman in the flesh. He’d expected to feel some deep urge, some need to throw her down and do the god’s will without a moment’s hesitation… But he was having a real devil of a time getting too worked up about it. He didn’t want a bunch of kids to die, of course, for a whole city to be consumed by liquid fire, but being real with himself, the whole situation made him melancholy rather than righteous or wroth. He mostly wished Zosia had never shown up at all… and not just because she had brought Ji-hyeon’s lover back to her. He was happy for Ji-hyeon. Delighted for her.
He bumped into a pack of drunken, reeling soldiers and muttered an apology he didn’t really mean. What a bullshit night. Here he was, halfway across the Star from the Savannahs, having traveled as far as any hero in the epics, and he felt just as small and stupid as he had back home. He could recite a hundred ballads, could tell you how Old Black had outwitted the sea devil of Zozobra, of Rakehell’s lusty adventures in the Lair of the Minotaur and how he’d escaped that monster’s bed, but when it came to his own song it was like he’d forgotten the words and bungled the meaning, clueless as to what canto ought to come next. They always seemed to know what to do, his ancestors, ready with a quip or a stab in just the right ear, learning from their mistakes and outfoxing their enemies… Yet Sullen could barely figure out where to take a shit without upsetting someone in this bustling camp of exotic foreigners, and if you don’t know where to attend such basic business, what hope is there for navigating the real challenges set before you?
A Crown for Cold Silver Page 50
