A Crown for Cold Silver Page 4

  “Wishful thinking of an angry father. If those runts the council sent after him had actually caught the boy they’d have come home singing about it, instead of playing it too fierce to talk about. No, my boy can’t be any deader than the cold cod we got around here,” said Grandfather longingly. “I got half a mind to see if I can’t track ’im down before I find my doom, or it finds me. Fess to him he was wise to leave, a fool to ever come back, and wiser still the second time he lit out. Tell him… tell him his dad don’t understand why he did what he done, but he’s finally ready to listen.”

  The wind whistled through the thatch of their hut, and in the darkness Sullen squinted to see the wraithlike devils capering over his bed. No wolf worthy of his horns would leave his pack, no matter how worthless a gang they were… a real horned wolf would whip them into shape or die trying rather than turning tail. How many times had Grandfather said that?

  So this must not be the same as turning tail. Grandfather just wanted to find Uncle Craven, and then they would come back. The same as Uncle Craven, really, who’d gone missing as an unnamed boy, only to return a thaw or three before Sullen was born and live as a proper Horned Wolf up until that dark day of the battle. Even after Uncle Craven broke their laws by leaving the first time, when he’d come back the clan had welcomed him. That Uncle Craven had just run away again a few years later and the clan now cursed his name more than any devil didn’t matter so much, because once Sullen and Grandfather returned they’d never leave again. This would be a quest for Sullen to earn his honor, not too different from the Songs of Rakehell or the Saga of Old Black. He knew their tales by heart, kenned the heroes of old in a way he had never understood the Horned Wolves he had come of age alongside. He had always longed to have an adventure of his own, and they were thin on the ground here in the Frozen Savannahs.

  The thought of meeting his uncle—of demanding to know why he’d abandoned him and Grandfather on the battlefield just to abandon the clan altogether—filled Sullen with a strange and powerful hunger. Not a small hunger, neither; no, this felt like he’d just smelled a thick slice of barley bread topped with a scoop of lye cod after the midwinter fast. He could let Grandfather talk to Uncle Craven, and then he could talk to him, and then all three of them could come home together, and Sullen would bring along such treasures as he’d found along the way as to make all the clan love him… or maybe just respect him a little. It wasn’t as though he and Grandfather would be terribly missed—they would probably be home again before anyone noticed they were gone. Theirs would be a song worth singing, even if he only ever sang it to himself when he was sure he was alone.

  Looking back and forth between his snoring mother and his eager grandfather, Sullen made up his mind. Would his mother be heartbroken when she awoke and found both her father and son gone, or would she secretly be relieved? Sullen didn’t know, and as always, the not knowing made everything so much worse.

  CHAPTER

  5

  What an absurd, appalling day.

  Take some initiative, his father was always saying, like the chorus in the tragedy that was Sir Hjortt’s life, for the love of your ancestors, get off your doughy ass and take some initiative. And the one time he took that advice, the one fucking time, where did it get him? Right fucking here, apparently. Thanks, Dad.

  Sir Hjortt straddled a painful fence, split between hatred at the probably deceased Brother Iqbal for neglecting to detect the old woman’s witchcraft and good old-fashioned self-pity. The mayoress clearly had the aid of devils, for she’d dodged the knight’s sword with the speed of a water weasel and then broken his arm with the strength of an ox. An angry one. The steel cop covering his elbow had actually popped loose from her barehanded assault, dangling as worthlessly as the arm it had failed to protect.

  The knight had been in his fair share of scrapes—well, one or two, anyway—but the agony of his arm being snapped backward had beggared belief. By the time his mind had recovered from its shock the old witch had dragged him back inside her kitchen. His sole attempt at further resistance had resulted in her frogging him in the eye with a curled finger and then twisting his broken arm until he retched from the pain of it all. After that, he did as he was told and let her tie him to a chair with the coil of thick cord she had scared up. The most that could be said for his situation was that he barely registered his headache anymore.

  Now she was stomping around upstairs and Sir Hjortt’s thoughts were beginning to crawl back toward rationality—she had undone both Iqbal and himself, doubtless with some fell sorcery, and now he was her prisoner. Even if Sister Portolés came straight back after giving the order to purge the town, it was a long walk up the hill. He might be alone with the old woman for a while, and had best ensure she knew what a healthy ransom he would command before she did anything regrettable. Well, anything more regrettable.

  Footfalls on the stairs in the other room, and then she bustled back into the kitchen and deposited a pile of clothing onto the table. She paused, then picked up a linen shirt and draped it over her husband’s head, covering it and the scones. Next she pulled her dirndl over her head, and then her blouse. Although she didn’t seem to possess an extra breast on which her familiars might suckle or any other witchly deformities, her inexplicable stripping sat poorly with her captive.

  Her head snapped in his direction, and Sir Hjortt realized with horror that he must have inadvertently made his displeasure known with a groan or something. He tried to play it off, lolling his head and staring down at his broken arm as he moaned. She walked over and backhanded him across the cheek, which was entirely uncalled for and flew in the face of all acceptable conduct regarding noble prisoners of war. He knew because he’d memorized those passages of the Crimson Codices, lest he ever find it necessary to surrender rather than die an easily avoided death on some random battlefield.

  “You should have let me speak,” she said, putting her face right in his, her breath stinking like that awful tea. “Instead of sending your Chainwitch down to murder my people, you should have let me have my say. You’d be counting coins right now. A lot of them. I’d follow you and kill you, of course, for what you did to Leib, but I’d have given you a few weeks to put this place behind you, lest anyone suspect the motive and return to Kypck. You might have enjoyed those extra days of easy living.”

  “This ‘Leib’ is your husband.” Sir Hjortt frowned, his face stinging from her blow. “Kypck’s your town.”

  “Leib was my husband, before you killed him. Kypck was my town, before you killed it, too. If you’re not on a battlefield, you should learn the names of those you slaughter, if only to taunt any vengeful pursuers.”

  “From his first breath to his last, the wise general never leaves the battlefield,” said Sir Hjortt sagely. “Only thus is peace won.”

  “Ugh,” said the witch, wrinkling her nose. “They’re still hammering Lord Bleak’s Ironfist into the Crimson command? No wonder you’re such a shameless bastard, swallowing that fascist dog shit.”

  “You’ve read it?” said Sir Hjortt, surprised.

  “ ‘Poor strategies should be studied as well as wise ones, for generals shall adopt the former more oft than the latter.’ You know who said that?” The naked old sorceress was still leaning over him, and as one of the waves of pain rolled back out to sea he realized she was actually waiting for a response. He shook his head. “Ji-un Park,” she said.

  “They no more taught us the tactics of Immaculates than they did the stratagems of squirrels,” said Sir Hjortt. “But I think it’s high time we talked ransom, my lady, as—”

  “My lady, is it?” She snorted. “You’d have been better off studying the squirrels than Lord Bleak—they have the sense to stay away from beehives, even if they are full of honey.”

  “I… uh.” Sir Hjortt felt the heat spread from his broken arm up to his cheeks at the lewd way the matron breathed the words in his face, and he looked away from her nakedness. By all the devils and deacons of the Bur
nished Chain, what was she going to do, cast a spell?

  Instead of ensorcelling him, the woman turned away and went back to the clothes piled on the table. After fishing out a tan pair of trousers, she squeezed into them with a grunt and then fixed a leather… thing across her bosom. Over that went a shirt or tunic or something—the knight had stopped paying attention in order to try and wriggle his ankles free, get some options going… but when she’d tied his legs to the chair she’d been thorough, and he couldn’t do more than impotently squirm in his seat.

  She left the room, banged around the rest of the house, and then came back into the kitchen with a stout, one-handed war hammer and an unstrung bow. Setting these on the clothes pile, she disappeared again. Sir Hjortt stared at the hammer nervously. She returned with an already bulging backpack and set to wrestling the remaining clothes into it, save for the shirt covering her husband’s head.

  “My lady,” he said, but she ignored him, and so he tried again. It was like reasoning with his father, only worse. He hadn’t thought such a thing was possible, prior to this moment. “Madame Mayoress, if I might—”

  “You might shut your mouth before I decide to cut out your tongue—you could choke to death on your own blood. For all I know your Sister Portolés is halfway up the hill, and I don’t intend to be here when she finds the remains of your other pet witch.”

  “You’re the only witch here,” said Sir Hjortt, although now that she mentioned it he wondered if Portolés had somehow sensed it when Iqbal died, if she was even now racing up the trail to—shit on fire, the hag was messing with his broken arm again!

  “You can’t know how much I hate being called that,” she said, running her hand down his agonized arm, then holding up a sinew bowstring for his inspection. “But you’ll find out soon enough how it feels for fools to think you’re something other than what you are, for them to attribute your accomplishments to witchcraft. They’ll call you a sorcerer, do you know that?”

  “What are you… don’t!” Sir Hjortt felt his numb thumb in her bony fingers, then the bowstring dug sharply into the base of the digit. A tear formed in the eye that wasn’t swollen shut as his thumb immediately began to sing louder than its broken arm.

  “They’ll be wrong, of course, but it won’t change things—Colonel Hjortt of Azgaroth: demonologist. Or maybe diabolist, it amounts to the same thing. Colonel Hjortt, summoner of devils best left in hell. Not bad for a young prat of a noble, eh?”

  “This isn’t my fault,” Sir Hjortt blathered over his shoulder. “I’m a decent man, I didn’t want to go into the army, I wouldn’t, I’m not a bad sort, I just… just…”

  “Did as you were told?” She paused in her work, her voice low. “Carried out the orders you were given?”

  “Yes, exactly!” said Sir Hjortt, eager to tell her whatever she wanted to hear, anything to make her stop. “Orders! Not my idea! Never!”

  “You certainly seemed reluctant to carry them out,” she said, her voice hardening as she looped the bowstring around the base of his other thumb, the one on his good arm, and pulled it tight. As she deftly tied it off in a knot, an immediate, awful throbbing filled both thumbs, as though they had been stung by something highly poisonous. She stood, went to the cooling kettle, and picked up a kitchen knife she had been warming beside it on the woodstove.

  “Please,” Sir Hjortt gasped, his skull pounding in tandem with his arm and, worst of all, his thumbs. He tried to stay calm, but she’d tied them so tight the sensation would have been unbearable even if he hadn’t guessed what she intended. “Please, there’s no cause for—”

  “No cause?” said the witch, coming back to him. Fallen Mother save him, the black blade of the knife in her hand was actually smoking. “We both know the punishment for theft in your homeland, don’t we, Colonel? You’ve stolen my husband from me, you’ve stolen my friends, my family, so this should hardly come as a surprise. The tourniquets will keep you from bleeding too much.”

  “Please, I didn’t have a choice, I—” But then the witch crouched behind his chair, and though he thrashed in his seat, she made short work of it. The pressure in the thumb of his broken arm was released first, and then, more palpably, he felt his other thumb sawed through in several brisk strokes. The bone gave her trouble, though, and he shrieked as she snapped it off. When he was again sensible of his surroundings, his tormentor was back in front of him, wiping the bloody knife clean on the vair collar of his cloak.

  “You said you didn’t have a choice,” said the witch, sliding her unstrung bow into a scabbard on the side of her backpack and then shouldering it. “I believe you, boy—you’re just a good little doggie doing what he’s told, aren’t you? An innocent lad, cursed with bad luck?”

  “You evil, evil woman,” Sir Hjortt whined, the fire where his thumbs had been now spreading through his hands. “I’m a colonel of the fucking Queen of Samoth! They’ll find you, my father, Sister Portolés, the queen, the pope, they’ll find you and—”

  “And what, boy? And what?” She took the hammer off the table and advanced on him. “You don’t know a devildamned thing about anything, do you? What could they do to me, eh? What could they take that you haven’t already stolen?”

  “You’re dead!” Sir Hjortt knew he was being pathetic, that he was courting further punishment, but he couldn’t stop himself. “You’ve fucking crippled me! How am I supposed to get on without my hands, you monster! It would be a mercy if you’d kill me instead!”

  “Mercy. Now there’s a devil I won’t have any truck with, not from here until my dying day,” she said, but she reached around and slipped the handle of her war hammer through a loop on the side of her backpack instead of using the weapon on Sir Hjortt. Then she went to the table, flipping the shirt off her husband’s head. After a moment’s pause, she picked the skull up by the hair and returned it to its satchel, which then went over a shoulder. It hung awkwardly against the backpack, and as she looked back at Sir Hjortt with those flashing blue eyes he knew what he should have from the very first—he was totally, utterly fucked.

  “What can you do?” he said, his voice cracking. “What can you possibly do? Where can you go? They’ll find you, they will, to make an example—”

  “An example,” said the witch, nodding. “That’s what I’ll do, make some examples. Now, let’s take a look and see how the example you set for me is going.”

  She walked behind him, grabbing the back of his seat in both hands and dragging him out onto the deck. The legs of the chair screeched as he went. How could Iqbal have missed such obvious deviltry, a grey-haired gran capable of hauling around a fully armored knight? What was the point of keeping witchborn bodyguards if they couldn’t even recognize their own wicked kind? It was hard to think anything so coherent, though, the pounding grief in his hands consuming everything, all the blood that should be flowing through them instead backing up into his brain, drowning his mind in a deluge of pain. It took some grunting and cursing, but she finally maneuvered the chair so that he could look out over the valley. There was a lot of smoke coming up, but he couldn’t make out much else. The mocking aspens made him reel, and if he hadn’t been tied in place he would have collapsed. Damn the Fallen Mother for her deafness.

  “Don’t worry, Colonel Hjortt,” she said, still standing beside him. “If your weirdborn nun is half as clever as I expect, you’ll be saved long before the fire spreads out here. And if not, well, hopefully the ropes will burn away first and you’ll get off with a light charring. I know masks are quite fashionable in Azgaroth, especially Cockspar. They used to be, anyway.”

  He tried to speak, to beg, maybe, or threaten, but his tongue felt as heavy as brass.

  “Before, you generously offered me the freedom to weep, should I need to,” the madwoman breathed in Sir Hjortt’s ear. “I think I’ll wait, though. I’m not going to cry for all those honest, blameless people down there, much as I love some of them, much as I like most of the rest. I’m not even going to cry for m
y husband.”

  She tousled his hair, her lips now brushing his earlobe. “The only one I’m going to weep for, good knight, is you, and my tears will only fall after we’ve been reunited. That’s right, boy, once every other individual responsible for this travesty has been dealt with, after every single one of them has been paid a visit, then I’ll find you, wherever you go, wherever you hide, and I will deal with you at my leisure. Then, oh brave Hjortt of Azgaroth, Fifteenth Colonel of the Crimson Empire, then, when you’ve finally escaped my vengeance, either through madness or death, then I will weep, but only because I can no longer torment you.”

  “Holy shit,” Sir Hjortt managed before the first sob wracked his gallant chest. From the pain, yes. And the shock of being made a cripple, certainly. Yet the true source of his misery, the thing that made him half hope that the fire she set in the house just before fleeing into the mountains would consume the deck he sat upon before Sister Portolés could rescue him, was one simple fact: he believed every word she said.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Maroto sat atop the rim of the canyon, leaned his mace against a rock, and strapped his sandals back on. The sandstone felt warm against his bare legs with the bloody sun just peeking over the cracked plateau; in a few hours the rock he leaned against would be scalding to the touch. Even complemented by daybreak’s bouquet of rose, hyacinth, and lilac, the Panteran Wastes looked even worse up here than they did in the labyrinth of ravines and gullies that cut through the desert. Down in the shadow roads there were cacti and twisted cedar, the infrequent spring surrounded by cattails and stunted willow, but nothing grew on these exposed plains and ridges save umber tufts of grass, ivory lichens, and blasted black rock formations. Maroto knew he could have found a worse place to lead his party, but doing so would have taken more work than he was willing to put in without extra pay.