TWENTY-THREE
TOADBACK
You learn to live with it.
The horror, I mean. The pain. The stress. You know, all the bad shit.
That’s not to say you ever really learn to get away from it. You drink, but booze runs out. You fuck, but people leave. You fight and sometimes you get lucky and die, but a lot of the times you don’t.
The only thing that comes close is what I did, what we all did, after what happened at Bitterdrink.
We kept moving.
One foot in front of the other, eyes on the ground, tall as you can carry yourself and if that’s not so tall, that’s fine, so long as you keep moving. That’s the only way you get away from it.
Kind of.
Because it always follows you. When you stop moving, it catches up. And when you start moving again, you can still hear it, that horror, screaming at you over and over of what happened and why didn’t you stop it?
But if you keep moving, you can at least make it not quite so loud.
I needed to believe that.
We needed each other to believe that.
Or none of us believed it and we just chose not to acknowledge it.
Take your pick. It was probably all three that saw us trudging through the old marsh roads into the east. I led, Congeniality’s reins in my hand and Liette riding her, the twins and Agne trailing behind. We exchanged glances occasionally—words, less often.
This, I thought, was a small mercy.
I did not know how to talk to any of them. About any of it. What we had seen—whatever it was that Torle had done, however close we had been to it—was something we all carried ourselves, too heavy to ask others to bear it with us. Or that’s what it felt like, anyway.
How was I supposed to tell Agne that I was terrified when she wasn’t even sure she still knew what terror was? How was I supposed to ask the twins to talk when Urda had to help his sister up whenever she rose because she’d spent too much of her magic on me? How was I…
How was I supposed to tell Liette that we’d had only one chance at getting that fucking thing inside her out of her and now I almost wish I’d never brought it up? How was I supposed to tell her I was out of fucking ideas?
Turns out, I couldn’t.
I didn’t know how.
So I stayed silent. And so did she. And so did they. The only sound that escaped our little group was the occasional discontented squawk from the bird.
And so it was that when the marsh gave way to river and the trees gave way to signposts and the road gave way to a stream of refugees, we found we fell right in: just more quiet souls, wearily trudging toward the distant town of Toadback.
As the bog smoothed out and became long shores, the Yuber River came sweeping into view. Its dark waters stretched broader here, as it flowed out to sea. Land fit for building was hard to come by. Spaces to trade, even rarer.
Toadback had the fortune to be both, which was why it was still standing.
The river city was actually two towns. The river pirates who’d settled these lands slowly traded their bases for towns and their weapons for trade. Bandit lords had become freehold barons as the two towns eventually grew big enough to be connected by a vast bridge of wood and stone spanning the river.
The bridge had brought trade. The trade had brought money. The money brought the armies.
Toadback wasn’t the first freehold to realize that survival in the Scar often came down to whose colors you were flying. But they did perfect the art that other fliptowns would come to embrace: keeping a show force of an army to “surrender” with when a new power came to town and demanded it, happily greeting them as liberators before resuming business as usual, then doing it all over in reverse when another power showed up. The Revolution and Imperium were wise to the practice, of course, but the trade and base was too valuable to punish.
Personally, I found all this stuff fairly interesting but it turns out witnessing a massive magical slaughter has a way of really sucking the fun out of sharing local trivia.
What I found more interesting were the people.
The closer we got to Toadback, the thicker the refugees got. People who’d fled this far east had come hoping that the Yuber could put distance between them and the fighting. And if anywhere was safe from Revolutionary conscription or Imperial annihilation, it was a fliptown. Usually, anyway.
Some of the desperate faces I saw were ones I recognized. Meret’s people—he took better care of them than I ever did. I was heartened, however slightly, but still kept my scarf pulled up around me.
A shudder ran through the stream of refugees. A brief cry rose and was settled as the people fell silent. Far away, there was the distant sound of a thousand locust wings beating, the crescendo of cannon fire. Somewhere nearby, one of the Ten Arrows sailed through the sky, raining fire and shrapnel on the world below. And on the road, everyone listened and waited to see if the noise would grow closer.
And when it didn’t, they would go back to walking.
These people, even if they did recognize me, didn’t need my shit. We both had problems of our own, after all.
Among the refugees, there were those I didn’t recognize. People whose clothes were a little too nice, whose faces were a little too full, whose eyes were a little too intent on me. They hung out on abandoned wagons and on top of signposts, like crows grown fat on human carrion. Some were men, some were women, but I recognized all of them for what they were.
Ashmouths.
They wanted me to see them.
They wanted me to know they were expecting me.
I felt about as fine with that as you would expect me to. The Ashmouths were a deceitful, murderous bunch of cheats, liars, thieves, and professional assholes. They don’t even do it for fun. Knowing that they were my best hope at making it out of this with Liette intact…
Well, I didn’t fucking love it, I’ll tell you that much.
But we’d spoken about it. She and I. In hushed whispers and desperate sobs. She couldn’t go back to the Imperium; even if I could bear the thought of her ending up in a cage to be shredded for the Empress’s library, she couldn’t bear the thought of Eldest in the hands of someone like Torle of the Void. I couldn’t blame her.
As for the Cacophony…
Well, let’s not talk about the Cacophony just yet.
With no other options left, the Ashmouths made the most sense—terrible sense, but the most of it. The Three weren’t lying: they could pay any price, find any expert, acquire any materials, knowledge, or means necessary to get what they wanted. I wouldn’t even be shocked if one of the servants in Torle’s entourage happened to work for them.
I didn’t doubt that they could save Liette.
Only that we would come out of this together.
The closer we got to the city, the more they appeared. Now they loitered against walls and hung out lazily in the road. Some were dressed in peacekeeper uniforms, others disguised themselves in the stream of refugees, all had the same smug half-grin as they flexed in the middle of a sea of refugees just for my sake.
Which I understand. They are a professional organization. Sometimes they had to demonstrate their might. Fair is fair, after all.
Which is also why I felt perfectly justified in letting my scarf fall away from my hip to show the black grip swaying with my stride, the coils of steam escaping the sheath. He did so love being noticed.
The Ashmouths showed up on the road a lot less after that.
Fair is fair and all.
“Fuck me, I need a bath.”
Yria was the first to speak when we made it into the town proper past the gates. All pretenses of keeping her shit together melted away as she visibly slumped, leaning hard on her brother’s shoulder.
“Fuck me, I also need a drink. And a fucking bowl of stew thicker than your mother’s ass.” She paused, considered. “Actually, change that. Let me do the stew and drink first, bath later.”
I couldn’t say I disagreed.
Not even the part about my mother’s ass. She was a proud woman and she’d carried it without apology.
“And unless Lord Greasemouth and Lady Flowerfarts over here”—she gestured vaguely to me and Liette—“have any objection, that’s exactly where the fuck we’ll be.”
Urda looked at me with what he wanted to be intensity, what I wanted to be assuredness, and what ended up being desperate and pleading. I sighed, nodded toward them.
“Doov’s Noodles is off toward the bridge,” I said. “I had them last time I was here. Pretty good.”
“First fucking favor you’ve done me.” Yria slapped her brother across the back, possibly affectionately. “Now don’t fucking make that face, I’ll buy you some fucking tea.”
Urda managed a smile. Weaker than I had hoped it would be. And as he and Yria left, I turned to Agne. She stared out over the refugees trickling in behind us as more of them cleared the peacekeepers at the gate.
I wondered what she was thinking about behind those eyes. Had they been brighter last night? Were they emptier now? Did she see these people with the same pity and compassion she once had? Or did she see simply more bodies that could be broken? Did she see them at all?
“Agne?”
Maybe I intended to ask. Or maybe I just wanted to beg her to talk to me. But I didn’t and neither did she. She stalked off without a word, gliding effortlessly through the tide of misery. I watched her, made a move to follow.
Liette’s hand found my shoulder.
“I… I think I need you more. Right now.”
I sighed. She was right. There was no point in putting it off any longer. I took her hand in mine.
“Ready?”
She squeezed my hand. Rested her head on my shoulder, slumped into me.
“Do you think,” she whispered, “I’m Lord Greasemouth and you’re Lady Flowerfarts or the other way around?”
I grinned, pulled her close to me. “I don’t think it matters.” I kissed her on the brow. “Because obviously I’m Lord Greasemouth.”
“I would love to hear your rationale for that.” She smiled, pulled her arm over me as we started walking. “You lack both adequate lip coverage and lordly demeanors.”
“If you’re saying I’m thin-lipped, I’m going to let that go.” I lifted my nose a little higher, sniffed. “Because I’m so regal and forgiving, you know.”
“Forgiving,” she repeated flatly. “Sal the Cacophony.”
“Your implication impugns my honor, my lady,” I replied, insufferably full of shit as I could possibly manage. “If I am devoted to retribution, it is only because my noble heart burns so passionately.”
“I thought it was the booze and the fighting.”
“Peasants drink booze and fight,” I said. “Lord Greasemouth partakes of ambrosia and engages in passionate fisticuffs.”
She looked at me. Her nose wrinkled. She did that thing where she laughed and didn’t mean to laugh so it comes out as a snort.
This was nice.
What we had here. Walking. Joking. The kind of people who could be stupid on the street and not care about it.
The streets of Toadback were bustling. Refugees paused where they could, bartered for what they had with the merchants who were willing. But the town continued to work around them. Draft birds hauled carts between clean, respectable houses. Smithies burned, churning out spurs and bits and forks and other things people paid them for.
And, of course, the busy work of a coward never truly ends.
The distant sounds of Revolutionary airships had inspired a sort of haste in the local township. Peacekeepers were as occupied with changing local banners from Imperial to Revolution as they were with the refugees. Local people hastily pasted slogans and posters in their windows in anticipation of a coming occupation.
But even that couldn’t diminish the feeling I had as we walked along the avenues. The feeling that we weren’t people who needed to be here for darker purposes. The fantasy that we were here just to walk the streets and smell the bread.
I wondered where we’d live if we lived here. What kind of respectable, boring house we’d have. What would it feel like to wake up in a bed for more than a week in a row? What would it feel like not having to hunt or fight or threaten people? Would I be able to do it? Would she be able to?
The thoughts carried me off briefly. And I can’t say I hated it.
Even if we weren’t those kinds of people, even if we didn’t get those kinds of endings to our stories, well…
Maybe it’s just nice to think about.
I held her tighter as we rounded a corner down to a new street. I glanced up, found a sign hanging from one of the buildings of two rothacs butting heads over a bowl of rice. The smell of spices wafted out from its windows, steam carrying the sound of banging pots.
She looked up at the sign, adjusted her glasses. “Is the curry any good?”
“Best in the city.”
“Then all right.”
She turned to face me, hand on the door. I held her other hand for a moment longer. “Find a seat in a corner. Keep your back to a wall. If anything happens—”
“I can defend myself. For a little bit, anyway. And if anything happens to you…”
I shrugged. “I’m sure I can talk my way out of it.”
I tried to be glib. But that time had passed. She didn’t laugh now. We weren’t that kind of people and we couldn’t pretend we were. She slid behind the door, slammed it. I turned around, rested my hand on my hip.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Perpetually,” he seethed.
Together, we searched.
I looked over the crowd, sought through the faces passing by. Here, a sweaty and exhausted refugee toting a heavy burden toward the bridge. There, a bored laborer hauling her sack of timber toward the harbor. And over there, a scrawny-looking girl reading a book on a porch. She yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. Next door to her, a heavyset woman swept her steps with a rough broom.
Them.
I pushed through the crowd, stormed toward the girl on the porch. I put my foot down between her legs, hard sole clapping against the stone step. I leaned in, snarled a word.
“Where?”
“W-what?” The girl looked up, holding her tiny book like a shield. “I’m sure I don’t know what—hrk!”
I grabbed her by the throat, hauled her to her feet. She slapped her waist, looking for something that wasn’t there. I growled again.
“Where?”
“You’re not supposed to talk to me,” she gasped. “There’s… someone that’s going to be by soon and you’re supposed to talk to—”
I cut her off. Slammed her against the wall of her house. She let out a groan as the wind and the sense were both knocked from her. She slumped, motionless, to the ground. I turned and scowled toward the dowdy women next door, asked more nicely.
“Where?”
Her eyes went wide. Her arm shot up. She pointed down the street. “Two streets down, two doors over. They’re at a place called Kuron-Kurin. It’s a teahouse. The jasmine is excellent.”
“Thanks.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t feel great about that. Even if I did start off without even looking back at them. Obviously, when dealing with one’s issues, one usually exhausts all possibilities before beating the shit out of someone and threatening someone else. Usually.
But I had my reasons. The Ashmouths had eyes everywhere. There was no sense in trying to hide Liette from them. They wouldn’t make their move until they knew mine and a little show of force—say, picking out their informants and selectively beating one in public view—helped to remind them of that.
It may be Sal the Cacophony who came to speak to the Ashmouths.
But it was Sal the fucking Cacophony who was going to do the talking.
I found Kuron-Kurin exactly where she said it would be. In an assuming square, near the vast bridge. The teahouse had a view over the river, the waters pounding below. Refugees trickled through in a weary stream, crowding around the gates as they desperately tried to negotiate past the peacekeepers to get to the other side.
But despite the nearby suffering, the people here—families with noisy kids playing, elderly couples baking, a nearby butcher cutting and hawking fish from his counter—seemed mostly at ease.
Charming little place.
I might have liked it, even, if it wasn’t fucking crawling with assassins.
I pushed the door open. A little bell tinkled. A charming hostess ran forward to greet me before showing me to a table at the back of the teahouse. Various patrons sipped and steeped in silence, barely glancing up at me as I arrived.
Rudu and Necla didn’t stand to greet me.
They loitered instead beneath a cloud of silkgrass smoke and a dim paper lamp’s light. Necla sat rigid, his hands on the table, fingers twitching, eyes unblinking. Rudu, significantly less crazy and significantly more high, lounged behind it, gestured with his pipe for me to take a seat.
“Tea?” he offered, pushing a cup and pot my way.
I glanced at it. “Is it poisoned?”
“Yes, dumbass, I just offered you poisoned tea.” He rolled his eyes. “Look, not to be rude, but if you’re going to suspect us of poisoning you like that, you shouldn’t be fucking dealing with us like this.”
Necla shot him a sidelong glare. “That is not helpful to the goals of the Ashmouths.”
“What’s helpful to the goals of the Ashmouths is being as honest as we, as a bunch of murderers dealing with a remorseless Vagrant who’s killed more than a fucking few of them, can possibly manage.” He looked between us. “Agreed?”
“Agreed.” I poured myself a cup. Sipped it. That woman had been right—the jasmine was fucking amazing—kind of wish I hadn’t threatened her now. “So you understand why I didn’t bring her with me.”
“We can find her,” Necla hissed.
“And I can find you.” I waved a hand at him and I hope he didn’t like it. “I’m good on threats. What I want now is assurances.”
“The Three has no reason to betray you,” he replied.
“Except for all the reasons we know they have.”
“And one big reason they won’t,” Rudu said. “The one thing they care about more than their people or their pride.” He rubbed his fingers together. “The war makes decent money for them. But not enough as predictability. The knowledge they glean from our arrangement earns them money. Keeping you satisfied, happy, and out of their way until the end of your days earns them money.”
He wasn’t lying. It wasn’t like the Three hadn’t tried to kill me before. I’d done as much to them as to anyone else and I didn’t doubt for a moment that they knew it was cheaper to stay out of my way than in it. They wouldn’t betray me before I could figure out a way to hurt them worse, I was confident of that much.
I just had doubts about…
“How?” I whispered. “How are you going to do it?”
They held my gaze silently for a moment. Necla’s left eye twitched, his lip curled back in the vaguest rumor of a sneer. Rudu took in a deep drag of his pipe, exhaled a shimmering cloud. It drifted beneath my nostrils, plucked at the strands of my mind.
“How do you want it to be done?” Necla asked.
“We can go to Ocytus and find out who you spoke to there,” Rudu offered.
“Or we can ask a friend of a friend what you and Torle of the Void spoke of,” Necla said. “If you believe this information to be of use, then the Ashmouths shall find it.”
“You want to talk to the wisest sages in the Imperium? The most twisted devoted of Haven?” Rudu asked. “Done. You want researchers? Scribes? Equipment? Information?”
“All, likewise, are done,” Necla said. “Anything you wish. Everything you wish. The most deranged rumor from the most depraved lips in the most remote part of the world, we’ll follow up on, if you say it.”
“And everything else you want to keep you and her in comfort for however long it takes,” Rudu said. “A house? A fortress? A city? The Three can make it happen.”
“This, too, you know.”
They weren’t lying. I did know. Nor were they exaggerating.
The Three had that power. The Ashmouths had that reach. They weren’t making grand promises, merely statements of fact. Anything I wanted, they could give me. And though the temptations of research, equipment, whatever the fuck they said were many…
My mind kept coming back to that last part.
About the house. About life. About comfort. About what we could have. Not just not worrying about money, but not worrying about who was going to come after us or whether or not we were going to end up under someone else’s heel. The Ashmouths could give me that.
I could give her that.
Even if it meant letting go of… well.
My list—I hadn’t thought about it in days, yet it still hung in my vest like a knife in my heart. Even now, thinking about it, thinking of everything I went through in that dark place and letting go of the people who did that to me… letting them just… walk…
Well, I’ll be honest.
It hurt like fucking hell.
Like I was going to tear my ribs apart trying to hold that thought in my chest.
But…
Fuck me.
“What now, then?”
There were some things that hurt worse than that.
I was expecting the tension to slide out of the room once I said that. We’d reached an agreement, or at least one tentative enough to move forward. I’d thought that they’d relax a little, like I was about to.
What I didn’t expect, though, was for Rudu to hold his breath and for Necla to stiffen. What I didn’t expect was for Necla to glance to a nearby patron and wave a hand. What I didn’t expect was an ornate-looking box to be set down upon the table and for the two Ashmouths to look at me like they thought I was about to dig their dead mothers up and beat them to death with the corpses.
“There remains,” Necla whispered, laying hands on the box, “just one more point.”
I gritted my teeth. My body tensed. The box creaked open.
Within lay an ornate, elegant interior bedecked in silk and velvet. It was rimmed with gold and lined with exquisitely polished steel. In the center was a perfectly carved indentation for a gun.
With a dragon for a barrel.
“What the fuck is this?” I growled, looking over the box at them. “You told me they didn’t want him.”
“Sal,” Rudu said, “let me explain.”
Heat boiled at my hip. I felt his anger coursing through the sheath, into my skin. It mingled with mine, his indignation stacked on top of my fury. These fuckers, these absolute fuckers had just…
“No,” I spat. “No explanations.”
“Be reasonable,” Rudu said. “Minds change. Hearts change. Deals change. Even if the Three could let this opportunity pass, the weapon is dangerous. It could be used for—”
“No.”
“This is something the Three won’t let go. I tried to tell them, but—”
My hand went to my hip. The entire teahouse froze. From beneath tables, the various patrons withdrew weapons and crossbows, affixing them upon me. Necla froze, swallowing hard. Rudu flinched back as I pulled out the Cacophony.
I laid the gun on the table. Steam coiled off his brass. Tea began to boil inside the nearby pots.
“You tell them this,” I snarled. “That we made a deal, he and I. And that the next time they want to double-cross Sal the fucking Cacophony, they’d better send a higher grade of asshole than you two fucks.”
Rudu tensed. The Ashmouths at the tables stirred. Only Necla remained unmoved.
He raised a hand. He spoke a word.
“Leave.”
Rudu and the Ashmouth patrons glanced at him, curiously. He replied with a narrowing of his bloodshot eyes, a curl of his lip.
If he did, I didn’t fucking know about it. Neither did Rudu, by the look on his face. His lips twitched, like he wanted to say something. But instead, he shook his head, got to his feet, and emptied his pipe on the floor. He muttered a command to the Ashmouths, who silently filed out after him, glancing worriedly at us as we were left alone in the empty teahouse.
The lamplight flickered between us. The tea steamed in its cups, coiling up around my nose. Necla the Shroud leaned forward, steepling his fingers in front of his face.
“I did not want to do this,” he said, “but I know now why I have to.”
I tensed. The Cacophony’s brass twitched. I lay my hand near his hilt.
“I was hoping to use it one day to settle an old score, or ease the banality of my retirement somehow,” he whispered. “But retirement never came. When the war in the Valley began, the Three extended my contract. I fought. And I used magic. And I protected their interests. And I no longer dream.”
“That’s a fucking shame,” I muttered. “Try the chamomile.”
“But I’m glad I no longer do,” he said, his voice soft. “I thought the nightmares that followed me were a curse, but in them, I’ve seen a great darkness. A future of corpses and eternal night after all has been burned to ash. And when I can’t wake, it’s you I see, Sal. You and that woman of yours.”
My neck tightened. I made a move to rise. He held out a hand.
And ensconced within his fingers was a curved tooth stained with red. A harmless trinket. Useless and unnoteworthy but for the crimson paint. A Redfavor.
My Redfavor.
I’d given it to him long ago for the chance to speak to the Three. I hadn’t even remembered doing that.
“You gave this to me once,” he said. “I am using it now.”
My breath caught. He wouldn’t. The absolute fucker. The absolute fucker among absolute fuckers.
A Redfavor was the closest thing to law Vagrants respected. A Redfavor was the only thing that couldn’t be rejected, that couldn’t be refused. Whoever held a Vagrant’s Redfavor could ask anything of them. That’s what we agreed to, when we agreed to be Vagrants. Everyone knew it.
He and I included.
“You can’t,” I whispered.
“You can’t,” he replied.
And he was right. It didn’t matter what it was, how outrageous the favor or how insane the cost. Redfavor was Redfavor. It wasn’t given in haste and it wasn’t taken lightly. And if you turned it down…
Then whatever safety from Vagrants your title might have carried was gone.
And you were just another hog to be slaughtered at their leisure.
Your name, your story, your presence—it no longer meant anything to them.
“Understand that I take no pleasure in this,” Necla whispered.
And I didn’t believe him. My blood boiled in my chest. My breath came hot and angry in my head. I could barely hear him.
“Understand that this is the only way forward,” he said.
And I hated him for telling the truth. We were so close, again. And again I hadn’t thought far enough ahead and again we were going to fucking lose everything.
“Understand that this Redfavor entitles me to anything,” he said. “Your cooperation. The Cacophony. Liette.”
My finger clenched.
“Everything.”
Silence fell over the table. My body went cold. The blood seeped out of my head in one great, weary breath. My shoulders slumped. I didn’t move for a long time.
Slowly, Necla placed the Redfavor—my Redfavor—on the table. And, with terrified reverence, began to reach for the Cacophony. His fingers had barely brushed the brass before he hesitated.
Because I’d grabbed his wrist.
“I understand, Necla. I remember what a Redfavor does.”
I held his arm to the table. I pulled the Cacophony up. I pressed it to his forehead.
“And you remember what I said I’d do if you ever said her name again.”
“Sal, wait!” he began to scream. “YOU CAN’T—”
I couldn’t.
But I did anyway.
I wasn’t there when it happened.
But I was told, later.
I was told that the square was peaceful. And then suddenly, that nice little tea shop exploded. The windows blasted out into a spray of shards, left behind jagged wounds. The door flew off, impaled itself in a nearby wall. The sign spun wildly into the air and landed on a nice old man’s lunch through his roof three blocks over. The walls of the teahouse bulged out. A small river of steaming brown liquid poured from beneath the doorway and down the steps.
Rudu was there. Along with every Ashmouth that had been pretending to be a civilian. And all of them looked up, stunned and silent, as the dust began to settle.
I remember the next part, because I was there for it.
I came walking out of the teahouse, shards of shattered pots crunching beneath my feet. The Cacophony hung limply from one of my hands, steam peeling from his grinning maw. The box intended for him hung in the other. It fell from my hands, clattered upon the stones.
I reached up a hand, wiped the remains of Necla’s skull from my face, my chest, my belly.
I flicked gore upon the earth, looked over the crowd.
“Deal’s off,” I said.