A War in Crimson Embers

by Alex Marshall

  “Good morning, Captain,” said the chevaleresse, offering him the Cobalt salute. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Level with me, Singh,” he said suspiciously, all the discordant pieces of this impossible morning finally falling into joint. “I know this time I’m not just crossfaded, I’m really, truly dead—I get that. But is this place some kind of heaven, or some kind of hell?”

  “It’s just life, you old Villain,” she told him, spitting a clod of betel into the blood-tinged puddle at his feet. “Which is to say, a blend of the both. Now let us fall back behind the wall before your bugged-out brain becomes prophetic.”

  “Trust.” Maroto nodded, seeing that Nemi, Indsorith, and the few remaining Cobalts and Chainites were dipping inside the portcullis. He and his fellow Villain were some of the last through the gatehouse before it shut; the final two were his nephew and Ji-hyeon, their beast carrying them under the portcullis even as it began to lower. The riders looked as frazzled as their steed as they burst from the western market into its eastern twin, the animal huffing and puffing around the busy square the way Maroto used to after climbing up a canyon wall, before he’d gotten back into shape.

  “Hey, fleet riding, kiddos, how’d—” Maroto began to hail them but Sullen lurched off the side of the animal, losing his lunch before his feet even hit the ground. Ji-hyeon dismounted after him, stroking his back, and that was a bit of bonding Maroto didn’t feel like adding his avuncular touch to. Instead he let Singh lead him away through the thronged square where Cobalts shared wineskins with Chainites and Raniputri riders shared beedies with Immaculate archers. There were Flintlanders here, too, but it was clear from their relaxed bearing as much as their studded black leather armor that they hailed from Reh, the Bal-Amon coast, or some other more civilized corner of his homeland. Just about every Arm of the Star was represented in the busy piazza of East Othean, and unlike the desolate city on the other side of the wall, here every window of every building bordering the market was crowded with faces. Frightened ones.

  “Did you skip breakfast?” asked Singh as they passed one of the crowded booths that had replaced mundane merchant stalls, and catching the scent of sizzling Immaculate barbecue from the makeshift kitchen, Maroto queued up harder than he had ever queued in his life. The line moved quick enough, since none of the soldiers had to pay for the seaweed-wrapped rolls of rice, burdock, marinated beef, and fermented chili paste, but even still the usually patient chevaleresse was clearly in a rush to be off again. Maroto obliged her by only wolfing down three of the transcendentally delicious food-tubes by the side of the booth, and filled the rest of the way up on a sustained guzzle from a nearby rain barrel—nothing better than a post-fight feast, except maybe a post-fight sit, but Singh was clearly having none of the latter just yet.

  “You in some kind of a crazy hurry?” he gasped, that cramp in his side no longer feeling like some welcome reminder of mortality or whatever the fuck he’d been thinking as Singh hustled him out of the market square and through a door in the side of the wall. He whined out loud at seeing another of Othean’s infinite staircases awaiting them.

  “Yes,” she said, not slowing her pace. “We’re about to find out if this war can be won, and I do not intend to spend this momentous occasion skulking in a stairway.”

  “Fiiiine,” he said, following after her. “What’s about to happen, exactly?”

  “Didn’t Fennec tell you?” The ornamental yellow stitching on Singh’s coat-of-ten-thousand-nails made the armor shine like gold in the torchlight, her mustache even curlier than he remembered. “He told me he had.”

  “The trap, right, we led the Tothans into a trap.” Maroto leaned his head against the cool stone wall. The side that wasn’t a puffy mass of crusty bandages. “Fennec’s here? He made it?”

  “He’s waiting for us on the battlement,” said the chevaleresse, clomping back down the stairs to help Maroto resume his climb. “We’ll have a drink and a smoke and see just what kind of a trap these Immaculate priests have set. It had better be a good one, since you’ve led an army of monsters straight toward us.”

  “A smoke and a drink,” said Maroto, smacking his lips as he put an arm around Singh and started climbing again. “Decadent. You think we can afford to kick back at a time like this?”

  “We cannot afford not to, as this may well be our last opportunity,” said Singh. “I believe it is customary for the condemned to have a final smoke, and I have a pipe you can borrow.”

  “Believe it or not, I got my own for a change,” said Maroto, and when they reached the landing at the top of the stairs he took it out to show her. His hands were shaking, so she packed it for him from her pouch, and then filled her own—that heinous briar monstrosity Zosia had carved her way back when. Seeing it made his heart ache for the beautiful tankard-shaped pipe she’d made him, the one he’d lost devils knew where only to have Zosia miraculously return it to him back at the Cobalt camp … where he had lost it a second time, leaving it in his tent during the big battle from which he had never returned. He cursed himself for losing the greatest gift he had ever received, and twice over at that … but then the finest briar in the world is the one in your hand, and wouldn’t you know it, this one was Cobalt-carved, too. They got their pipes good and lit before taking them back out into the weather; the rampart was mostly covered, but between the wind and the damp it was better to use the coalstick inside. When their bowls were burning bright and the delicious Oriorentine blend filled the stairwell with the familiar but long-missed scent of Kang-ho’s favorite tubq, Singh gave the requisite knocks and the guards on the other side opened the door, letting them out onto the top of the wall.

  No wonder Singh had been in a hurry to get up here and get lit. From this vantage he could see clear across West Othean to the hazy line of the compromised inner wall, the bump of the Autumn Palace. Between here and there were the miles of city he’d just crossed, some quarters packed nearly as tight as the outer slums and others expansive estates of the noblesse that sprawled as wide as Raniputri castles.

  Good neighborhoods and bad were now equal, however, the whole fucking place infested with Tothans. Every street looked to be clogged with black-shelled ranks, bigger monsters jumped from rooftop to rooftop, and the largest of the lot came crashing through the buildings themselves, clearing wild paths through the orderly city. The vanguard would reach this central wall within minutes, and even from up here Maroto couldn’t see far enough back to catch sight of the army’s rear. For all he knew it didn’t have one, stretching out to the Temple of Pentacles and beyond.

  “That looks an awful lot like the end of the song to me,” confessed Maroto as they gazed out over the fallen city. The rain had stopped, and the creamy yet spicy tubq tickled his tongue as he pulled on Bang’s pipe. There was still an edge of brine to the smoke that made his eyes water. Well, his eye, anyway. “I’ll be honest, Singh, I never expected you of all people to follow Ji-hyeon through the Lark’s Tongue Gate. I would’ve put every coin I could borrow on you hightailing it out of the Witchfinder Plains, no doubt … but I’m glad you’re here.”

  “You should have laid a bet, then, because that is precisely what I did—I was back in Zygnema just as fast as my pony could carry me.” Singh blew a smoke ring up into the grey sky. “I will risk my life for a just cause, or a profitable one, but you will not see me risking my soul by stepping into a Gate.”

  “Huh?” Maroto looked away from the marching army, cocking his head at his old friend. “Okay, wait, I thought it was odd Fennec didn’t mention you were here. If you didn’t come through the Gate with the rest of the Cobalts, what’re you doing here?”

  “I heeded the counsel of one who did, someone who’s been awaiting your return for quite some time,” said the chevaleresse, taking his arm and leading him down the ramparts. There were soldiers everywhere, the single peacock feathers of the Immaculates’ helmets and the double black plumes of the Raniputris’ wiggling like worms in the wind, but none
of the troopers looked familiar to Maroto. “Granted, when she turned up on my doorstep her proposal was to sack Othean rather than save it, and that was indeed what we set out to do. While I was off enjoying our Cobalt reunion at the Witchfinder Plains my churlish children somehow managed to reunite the Raniputri Dominions, but I knew if I didn’t talk them into working together against some outer foe they would soon turn on each other. Near the end of our voyage, however, we were greeted by that same devil vulture who delivered Empress Ryuki’s messages to Ji-hyeon back at the Lark’s Tongue, and bearing an ironically similar plea: Little Heaven was indeed under attack, the fate of the Star was in peril, and all mortals should surely perish unless we came to Othean’s aid … So we did, but only arrived this morning, same as you.”

  “You sailed clear up here from the Dominions to throw down on the Immaculates, but when you got here decided to help them fight an unbeatable army of monsters instead?” Maroto squinted at the figures gathered on a bastion up ahead. “You must be just as demented as I am.”

  “Am I to suppose once these demons have had their way with the Isles they will seek no more victories?” Singh shook her head and her pipe in time, her bangles clinking. “I have children, Maroto, and my children have children, and someday their children will have children … but only if the Star persists. Do you understand?”

  “Hmmm,” said Maroto, recognizing Fennec in the small huddle of Raniputris up ahead. “I understand that the empress offered a handsome reward to whoever came to Othean’s defense, and if the city falls your riders can get back down to the docks faster than anyone else on this Isle.”

  “Well, there is that …” said Singh as they came up to the crowded bastion. “Something tells me your Azgarothian fleet also has practical motivations to complement their noble intentions, as do the seafaring Flintlanders who beat us both here. Othean is where the fate of the Star will be decided … and if we win, well, this adventure’s keeping my kids out of trouble for the time being, and I do have an inside connection to make sure my people are especially well compensated.”

  “And who the devils is that, anyway, the woman who talked you into coming up here?” Maroto asked as Fennec waved them over. “Ji-hyeon? I heard that she jumped into the local Gate and went missing for a while, but did she also pop out down in the Dominions to … to …”

  The woman who Fennec had been talking to turned as well, and Maroto saw that despite her Raniputri armor she was not of the Souwest Arm. She was … she was …

  He dropped his pipe.

  It was her. Not as he’d dreamed her, not exactly, for this vision wore armor instead of her altogether, her fit figure sheathed under brigandine. From her quirk of a smile he supposed Singh’s holding back on naming her had been upon request, to preserve the surprise. And that smile! Hard as it was to believe she was actually standing there in front of him, her smiling made this seem even more impossible than a dream.

  She came to him as he just stood there, slack-limbed, looking into her pretty ruby eyes as more explosions began popping way out in the distance; he felt the same tingling intimacy he’d experienced on Jex Toth when the Vex Assembly had gotten into his head. Only this was a welcome intrusion, and somehow so familiar he wondered if she had spent countless nights dreaming him, just as he had dreamed her … crazy as it sounded, it felt right, like this exact moment had played out a hundred times in both their hearts before finally coming to fruition. But he had to wait for the closest explosion yet to fade to give voice to his feelings, because it was so loud there was no way she could—

  Choi rolled up on her toes, put her hand on the back of his neck, and gently but firmly pulled him down into a kiss. As his tongue met hers those damnably elusive dreams he could never quite remember upon waking flashed through the back of his mind, in perfect focus at last, but he had no time for them now. She tasted of granted wishes, of coconut water passing over salt-stung lips as he reached out to her across the seas with his aching heart, with some fresh kaldi notes on the end. She tasted alive, and she kissed him all the harder, her fingers exploring his hair but careful not to brush his injured scalp, her other hand finding his arm and running down it to his palm, taking hold of it as if afraid he’d fall away again as she kissed him the way he’d always wanted her to …

  And then life kneed them both in the crotch, the entire bastion lurching to one side as some terrible force struck the wall. They stumbled apart, and he nicked his tongue on one of her sharp teeth. They both froze, waiting for the wall to buckle beneath their feet and send them tumbling to their deaths, but when there was no immediate catastrophe they straightened up from their panicked crouches. Had any first kiss been greeted with such dark portent?

  Well, maybe his and Bang’s on that bucolic Tothan hillside just before he’d been captured by monsters, but that had been a fairly chaste peck on the cheek to accompany the wicked spanking. Thinking of Bang now made his heart ache … but not out of any irrational guilt, since they’d certainly never talked about exclusivity. No, thinking of the pretty pirate gave Maroto’s ticker a wee spasm only because he wished he could kiss her one last time, too, and if that made Maroto a dirty old man, well, he’d never claimed to be anything but.

  “Oh,” said Choi, noticing something on the wet flagstones and bending down to pick it up. It was the canted bowl of the pipe Maroto had dropped, and the antler stem that had snapped off when it landed. Maybe it actually was for the best Bang wasn’t here, if only for the sake of Maroto’s buns … “This is unfortunate. I broke your pipe.”

  “Oh hells no, I had the dropsies, and to be honest it was never really mine to begin with,” said Maroto, taking the pieces and stowing them back in his pouch. “And I’m beginning to think nothing’s so broke it can’t be fixed.”

  “I apologize,” she said, “I am trying to stop smiling, but I cannot. You are truly here. This is no dream.”

  “Never stop smiling, please!” Even looking straight at her adorable gap-toothed grin he couldn’t quite believe it was real, either. “I can’t … I mean … you’re the one who talked Singh into sailing on Othean? I hope we live long enough to hear that song!”

  “It is brief enough,” said Choi in that matter-of-fact way he loved. “When the Tothans attacked I chose to risk entering a hungry mouth alone. I had paid close attention when Fennec first brought us through the Gates to Zygnema, and dared to replicate his method. I was successful. Upon passing over to the Dominions I sought out the chevaleresse, to enlist her in my campaign of vengeance against the empress. I was successful. That is the song … but … there are others I would sing you.”

  A nearby blast of light lit up the fierce wildborn face he had missed so much, and it was about as good a moment as Maroto could remember having … and then over her shoulder he saw the entire western city go off like a bundle of firecrackers, the explosions rushing in toward the central wall, the horizon going black with smoke as entire estates erupted in blinding flashes, flaming debris already beginning to rain down all around them. Seeing the blasts come closer and closer, and feeling the wind rise, he knew that as tall as this wall was it wasn’t tall enough to keep out all the embers blowing in. West Othean was detonating right before his eye, but long before the final bombs went off the eastern city was also going to catch fire. The Dreaming Priests of Othean had a foolproof trap to take out the Tothans, all right—lure in the enemy armies, and then burn the whole damn capital to the ground! Fair play, if a touch shortsighted … or maybe the Immaculates had known all along that theirs was a lost cause, that at best they could deprive their inhuman enemy of a conquest.

  So that was that, then. After all this time and blood and doubt Maroto had finally found the girl of his dreams, just in time to die beside her. Wasn’t that just always the fucking way?

  CHAPTER

  28

  Purna blinked her gummy eyes, hardly able to believe that here at the end of her exploits this silver fox had strutted back into her song. Zosia wasn’t exactly the one
that got away, because as much as Purna might’ve liked to hit that, such a coupling would have brought more drama with it than you could pack in a sky-devil’s saddlebags, but it was nevertheless good to see a familiar face. Even if said face was upside down, on account of Purna hanging from the cavern ceiling by her ankles.

  Purna tried to call out to Zosia but the webbing they’d wrapped her in was especially tight over her mouth. Hard to assume that was an accident, or the way they’d bundled poor Prince up against her chest like a fluffy baby. That the Vex Assembly had kept her and her chums trussed up like late-blooming butterflies over their Gate even after she’d told the ghouls everything she knew about Hoartrap just went to show that no morally dubious act of betraying the confidence of a creepy old devil-eater went unpunished. Or something. What a lousy day.

  The already sour situation had gone off entirely when the Tothan crone they’d originally taken captive had waltzed back onto the ziggurat. It wasn’t that Purna expected an evil, immortal witch to cut them some slack on account of how well they had treated her before the tables got turned, because come on now, she wasn’t naïve. No, what really burned Purna’s biscuits was seeing the smelly old priestess walk on over to the rim of the Gate and take up her position for their mysterious ceremony, easy as you please. They’d hauled her lazy ass all over the damn jungle, assuming she was crippled, but all this time her legs worked just fine!

  Annoying a development as this undoubtedly was, things had taken a further turn when another horrible old man suddenly burst out of the Gate below with none other than Hoartrap himself held fast in his spindly arms—at that point the rest of the devil-haunted witches had lost all interest in interrogating Purna or preparing for their ritual in favor of falling upon the subject of their inquiry. Now that they’d laid hold of the Touch they didn’t seem much interested in talking, either. Purna had seen some shit in her day, some real real shit … but nothing like what they’d done to Hoartrap, and she’d had to close her eyes as he screamed and screamed, lest she find out what happened when you threw up whilst gagged and suspended upside down. The last thing she’d seen was the pack of ancient maniacs tearing away handfuls of Hoartrap’s ivory flesh as if he were made of clay or wax, and far more disturbing than the modicum of spattering black blood were the great smelly clouds of pale spores that billowed from his gaping wounds.