A Crown for Cold Silver Page 5

Beneath him it was still too dark to see much. They had a cooking fire going, so he supposed the caravan had finished circling the wagons as best they could in the tight canyon—the gaudy convoy reminded him of an emperor centipede winding across the smoldering desert by night and then coiling up in some hole when dawn threatened. A cooking fire, in the Wastes! Maroto couldn’t decide which was a greater marker of his party’s absurd affluence: that they insisted on eating half a dozen hot meals a night, or that in between they snacked on sorbets and other frozen treats. Witch-powered or not, keeping the ice-wagon cool must cost a pretty princedom. Almost as much as the aquaricart, probably.

  The money was good, though, so here he was. No, the money was great, princely, or else he never would have taken the gig. Repeat the mantra. As if money could ever be anything but devilish…

  He really ought to start climbing back down before it got too hot, now that he had confirmed that the horizon was free of encroaching swarmclouds and the sky was clear of thunderheads, but he couldn’t bear to return right away. He could (and indeed, had) slept through battles and coronations, orgies and sieges, but something about the shrill tittering of his charges kept him up long into the morning, every morning. Besides, scrambling out of the gorge as every other hold crumbled beneath his weight had given him a parched throat to go along with his raw fingers and toes, and climbing down was always far worse than coming up.

  Most folk, his party included, watered down their cougar milk, but then most people, his party especially, were utterly, irredeemably weak. Knocking back his boozeskin, the draught burned like it ought to, few things restoring a man’s perspective better than a pull on the licorice-sweet lava those Pertnessian alchemists cooked up. He fondly recalled a bar fight in Old Slair when a goon had swung on him with a lit torch and he’d used his flagon to breathe fire in the man’s face. That he’d set his own dreadlocks alight in the process only lent the tale flavor—by all the forgotten gods of his heathen ancestors, what had he been thinking, twisting his hair into those ropes? Why not just fix a handle on your helm for people to grab hold of and sling you about…

  The clattering of rocks bouncing down the ravine, and a grunt just beneath his heels. Somebody was coming up the cliff after him, and they were almost to the top. Of all the empty-skulled plays these lordlings had made, this had to be one of the worst. He’d allowed Sir Kuksi to accompany him up on their first morning out, and the ponce had slipped a mere twenty feet up the sandy slope, skinning his palms and twisting an ankle before landing in a heap of torn satin and silk at the bottom, to the jeers of his comrades. After that Maroto had made it abundantly clear: leave the scouting to the scout. Up until this juncture they had listened, but the brats were getting surlier by the night as crossing the Wastes revealed itself to be every bit as awful an ordeal as one ought to expect, given the name of the place. They claimed to want adventure, Lady Opeth going so far as to demand a giant scorpion to battle, yet they squealed like children when they found examples of the regular variety in their shoes after a hard night’s day of drinking, drugging, and gambling ’round the campfire. It took all of his willpower not to grab one of those boot scorpions in his bare hand and let it sting him into blessed oblivion.

  A soft and bloody palm slapped up, manicured fingers digging into the sandstone edge of the cliff, and Maroto darted forward. He grabbed the idiot’s wrist before any further weight could be put onto the dangerous handhold, before he could put any thought into whether or not it might be better just to let this moron fall to their death and serve as an example to the rest. The noble cried out as Maroto hurled them up and over the lip of the cliff, the petite lordling dangling from one of his thick hands. It was Tapai Purna, because of course it was Purna.

  Even after a week in the Wastes, Maroto had no idea if this particular fop identified as man, woman, or neither. The majority of the party came from the Serpent’s Circle, and there in the old-and-then-new-and-then-old-again capital of the Crimson Empire they still used the obvious titles like Duke and Duchess, Zir and Sir, so getting a rough idea of how to address someone wasn’t too hard. The Ugrakari honorific Tapai, on the other hand, could apply to anyone, and Maroto couldn’t remember enough of his campaigns on that side of the Star to recall if the name Purna skewed in any particular direction. Among most of the coxcombs certain unavoidable physiological differences helped make things easy, but Purna Antimgran, Thirty-ninth Tapai of Ugrakar, was one of the exceptions. Despite looking about thirty years old, the noble didn’t reveal enough in the chest or shoulders, arse or hips to give Maroto a solid clue. Tapai Purna may have hailed from a different homeland, but had adopted the Serpentine style of the rest of the nobles with gusto: an already androgynous, if handsome face was buried under lead foundation and cerulean lipstick, and the powdered wig only further befuddled matters. Purna’s choice of fashion was as confounding as that of the others: the most popular attire, despite the climate, consisted of puffy lace collars, enormous ribbon bows, and layers and layers of embroidered shirts and vests tucked into frilly cream bloomers. These bloomers would have looked bad enough beneath one’s clothes, but they were even worse when worn as an outer layer, Purna’s admittedly shapely legs swathed in parti-colored hose and tipped with delicate, black-buckled shoes.

  All of which were now scuffed or torn, stained and dripping, as Maroto set Purna down on the jagged ridgeline. Harlequin tears spattered the stone as sweat excavated gullies in the fop’s makeup. Purna’s garish facepaint reminded Maroto of a diva he’d performed with a time or two, way back in the bad old days, except Carla Rossi’s foulmouthed drag routine was a good deal more entertaining than anything he’d yet seen out of the nobles.

  “Made good time,” Maroto thought out loud, almost impressed by the lordling. Almost. “You in some kind of hurry?”

  “I—” Purna gasped, head shaking, and readjusted the damp wig that had migrated to the side. “Damn.”

  “Yeah,” said Maroto, then left the panting noble to peer back down the cliff. “Any more of you coming up?”

  “No,” said Purna. “Water.”

  “That how you ask for something?” said Maroto, passing Purna his cougar milk. He grinned when the fop coughed on the liquor, then chided himself as Purna spit out a mouthful—he shouldn’t waste a drop of good drink on his charges. “Ah, gave you the wrong skin—here you are, Tapai, my mistake.”

  “Thank you, barbarian,” Purna said, after recovering enough to properly speak. “I should have brought my own. Your first rule.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You told us the first rule of the Wastes was never to leave the camp without water.”

  “Half right,” said Maroto, remembering now. “I said the first rule was to never leave the camp, period, but if you did, never to go without water. Sound advice. I know what I’m talking about.”

  “Of course you do,” said Purna. The noble unbuttoned a removable velvet panel and used it to mop away grime and mascara sludge from around eyes as amber as a comb of dreamhoney. These popinjays always had something up their sleeves, if only another handkerchief. “You’re even better than we were expecting.”

  Maroto sighed. Here it came, then. From their first night out the dirty lordlings had been trying to seduce him, which had initially flattered him. That was, until Maroto politely declined an invitation to share Duke Rackcleff’s pleasure wagon, whereupon the jilted ninny had huffily informed him the proposition was solely due to a high-stakes wager the party had decided upon: who would be the first to bag the barbarian? Of all Maroto’s wards, Purna was far from the worst on the eyes, but even if there hadn’t been the pride angle, he still would have thought twice about rolling in the sand with the fop; in his experience, the upper crust were twice as likely to give you a pox as a prostitute, and half as inclined to finish you off if they came first.

  “So I’m impressive, am I?” he said, eyeing the raggedy Ugrakari. “You’re so impressed you came up here to what, rub my shoulders, maybe give me a token
of your affection?”

  “I beg your pardon?” This noble was a cool liar, no doubt—Purna almost seemed genuinely confused.

  “I know about the bet, and I fear none of you stands to profit from my prick. Maroto is no whore, nor a rich lord’s plaything,” he said, studiously keeping his mind from the dark old nights when he had been so far down the hive that he couldn’t even remember what he’d done to get his next sting.

  “Oh, gross!” cried Purna. “I am not involved in that, I don’t care how much lucre they put in the kitty. So disgusting!”

  “Yes, well…” said Maroto, thinking that maybe Purna wasn’t just referring to the ethics of such a wager, and flinching a little inside. “Then why follow me here? Such a climb is no place for a young, uh, person. Of distinction.”

  “Oh!” said Purna, eagerness replacing revulsion. “Diggelby let me use his hawkglass, and way over, ah, south of us, on this ridge, there was this great big lizard mooning itself on a rock. I thought we could hunt it!”

  “Big lizard?” Maroto’s sweaty skin went cold. “This ridge?”

  “From where you were climbing up it looked to be just over that, what do you call it… escarpment? Those rocks there, I mean, over those a little bit—ah!” Purna shrieked upon noticing that he or she had pointed directly at a godguana, the horse-sized lizard watching them from atop a rock shelf some twenty yards away. It could be on top of them in three bounds of its enormous, banded legs. “There he is!”

  “I see her,” whispered Maroto, meeting the black gaze of the carnivorous calamity rather than glancing to where his mace rested against the stone. He knew where the weapon was, could snatch it without looking, but would give his two pinky fingers if he could avoid having to use it. Female godguanas grew bigger, could disembowel you with their hooked claws, poison you with their noxious bite, but were less territorial than the males, so maybe she was just investigating them, and when she saw that they were no—

  “Get it!” howled Purna, charging past him at the godguana. Maroto didn’t waste his breath on a curse as he sidestepped toward his mace. Even as his hand found it missing his eyes located it. Purna. The noble held it high, bum-rushing a creature that half a dozen experienced hunters would have balked at taking on, and ululating all the way. “Wooooo!”

  It would have been better to flee down the cliff, trusting the creature to gorge herself on Purna while he made good his getaway, but that mace meant a lot to Maroto. Purna closed the distance over the rough ground, dainty shoes gliding over the rocks with admirable alacrity. The godguana hissed and rose up on her hind legs, and even at this distance the stench of her maw made Maroto’s eyes water as he seized up a melon-sized chunk of sandstone.

  The monster dropped down from the rock shelf, directly on top of the charging fop. Maroto hurled his rock. Purna was crushed to the ground by one of the godguana’s claws, and then Maroto’s missile nailed the creature’s left eye with such force that the sandstone exploded in a cloud of orange dust. The godguana’s head listed sharply from the blow, but only for a moment, her long, black-scaled snout straightening back out as she surveyed Maroto, one eye beady as ever, the other a raw, bleeding wound. She tensed her claws, Purna moaning as the lizard’s foot ground through cloth and skin alike. Maroto hoped the idiot noble lived long enough for him to kill this monster so that he could then have the satisfaction of hurling Purna off of the cliff.

  The rock had certainly gotten the creature’s attention; she launched herself straight at him. Smaller godguanas had an almost silly gait, their wide-armed dash anything but graceful. There was nothing silly about a full-grown female charging him, each stride covering half a dozen feet. Maroto whipped the dagger out of his belt as the godguana bore down on him. He braced himself, and when she lunged forward he ducked to the side of her mouth and went for her spiny neck. Grabbing her in an awkward headlock with his off hand, he was carried off the ground as she jerked away.

  He clung on as she attempted to buck him loose, claws narrowly missing his tucked-up legs, his head pressed against that of the direlizard. As she thrashed, the edge of his flattop caught in her gnashing jaws, and he felt the tug on his scalp as she chewed his hair, the stink of the rotten mouth bordering on the sublime. All the while Maroto plunged his dagger through the tough scales between her shoulders, over and over, nicking himself on her ridge of spines in the process, blood flowing freely down the arm he held the creature with as it ground against her sharp hide.

  It was a tried-and-true approach, and would have worked, too, if the luck gods hadn’t taken a shit on him in the form of a boulder onto which the godguana slammed him. He lost his strength for but a moment, and then he was off the lizard, laid out atop the rock like a human sacrifice as the bloodied, raging monster reared back up… and here she came again, crashing down like a hammer on an obstinate walnut. He tried to roll away, knowing even as he did that he was too slow, that it had taken him too long to get his wind back, and now, yes, ugh, the full weight of the lizard crashed upon him, pinning him halfway off the boulder with her chest. Woof. So much for Maroto, his guts were about to be squeezed out either end, and—

  Then she was off of him, hissing louder than ever, her tail whipping the boulder a hairbreadth from his chin. The edge of the sandstone splintered off from the impact and he fell off the rock after it, landing in a crouch and bracing for the claws or bite that were surely coming. He had dropped the dagger at some point and was seeing double for the first time in years—this was it. He was irredeemably screwed.

  Yet the twinned lizards shimmering in the dawn had turned their backs on him, and as his vision came back into focus he saw that one of her hind legs had been busted wide open at the haunch, the useless appendage oozing red through a mess of knotted muscle and torn scales. Purna limped just out of reach of the wounded godguana, warding off her snapping mouth with Maroto’s mace rather than chancing another solid swing at it. Purna looked about as rough as the lizard, the noble’s left side stained red from missing wig to torn bloomers, the priceless attire shredded to the skin and deeper still by the lizard’s claws, and hold on, yes, there was a petite but decidedly feminine breast under the blood and tatters.

  Even as Maroto registered this he stooped to get another missile, which stunned the godguana when it exploded against the crest on the back of her head. Purna didn’t close the deal like she should have, instead using the opportunity to put more distance between herself and the lizard, so Maroto went for another rock. As he grabbed a good one the godguana gave up the fight, skittering away over the narrow ridge, trailing gore, but before she gained the shelter of a high rock formation his third stone popped her in the back, just above the tail, and, tripped up, the monster slid over the far edge of the cliff.

  “Woof,” said Maroto, slouching back to lean against the boulder that had almost been his gravestone. What a disaster. “You okay, Tapai?”

  Purna waved the mace, then slumped her shoulders and dragged her feet over to him. She was missing a shoe, her stockings sullied and full of runs. Maroto still wanted to toss her down the ravine, but it would have been bad form, given how she’d just saved his life, so he settled for laying some hard truths on her.

  “That was the dumbest damn thing one of you golden goblets has pulled yet,” he growled. “And that includes bringing a fucking fish tank to the desert.”

  Maroto had, in fact, been rather impressed when he first saw Princess Von Yung’s aquaricart, but after he learned that none of the vibrantly colored marine life was actually edible, his opinion on the matter had soured considerably.

  “That was…” Purna shook her head, clearly on the edge of tears. Seeing how deep the gouges in her chest went, and the bruise rising on her scraped cheek, Maroto began to soften. Until she said, “That was the best. So fucking awesome. I saved your ass, barbarian! Woo!”

  “You saved my arse?” Maroto could not believe his fucking ears. “Girl, the next time you put your head in a kiln to watch the devils dance, I’ll le
t you look as long as you want instead of pulling you out. You nearly got us both dead!”

  “Were you scared?” asked Purna. “It’s okay if you were. I was scared, too. A little.”

  “Scared?” Maroto felt his cheeks flush, and then a fury that only escaped its bonds in his blood on the rarest occasions. But before the lordling could push him over the edge, Purna sat down on a rock, dropped the mace, and buried her head in her hands. Maroto watched her shudder with emotion for long enough to confirm that she wasn’t laughing at him, and after having a gander over the far cliffside to make sure the beast was truly dead, he fetched the cougar milk to pour on their wounds. Neither had suffered a bite, but even so, godguana claws were nasty enough to carry nine kinds of plague.

  When he came back Purna was sitting up straight, the mace propped against her knee, and Maroto did his best not to be too obvious in his ogling as he washed her wounds in booze. With her makeup sloughed off by the righteous trinity of blood, sweat, and tears, her stupid wig gone, and her cropped black hair spiky with lizard ichors, she looked a sight better. Not that he felt anything but scorn for the puffed-up little dandy, but few folk didn’t look good with blood on their tits and a weapon at the ready.

  There was a thought to please the devils. Maroto amended his musings: it wasn’t that he liked the idea of an injured woman, gods no, just that warriors always looked better bloody than clean, and warriors always looked better than anyone else. Nothing wrong with thinking the truth.

  “I think you’ve got it pretty well sorted,” said Purna, standing up, and Maroto realized he’d perhaps been overly diligent in his application of the absinthe-soaked rag. “Come on, let’s get you washed and then we can go after it.”

  “After it?” He winced as he applied the cloth to his wrist. He’d almost scraped it to the veins, riding that lizard’s rough neck. “I checked; thing’s busted open on a ledge fifty feet down. Even if she wasn’t, though, you don’t follow a wounded animal unless you have to. You think that monster put up a fight, see what one would do if you cornered her.”