CHAPTER

15

It was almost sundown but they couldn’t find any more stray cats. Diggelby said there was no such thing as a stray cat in the first place, as that implied domestication, and went on to argue that felines weren’t ideal for the job anyway, since they weren’t scavengers. Hoartrap responded that by letting wild beasts into their hearts and homes humans had made scavengers out of many a former hunter. As for what constituted a stray, the cranky wizard said that any owners who didn’t keep their pets close to home couldn’t very well complain if they ended up in a stewpot or worse. To Sullen’s mind tonight’s ritual definitely qualified as or worse.

“There was that crippled mutt back in that alley,” said Purna as they reached the far edge of Black Moth for the second time in their search through the half-deserted town in the center of the Haunted Forest. “I know I promised Digs no dogs, but that old son there wasn’t just on his last legs, he was down to three.”

“Yeah. …” Sullen couldn’t think of anything else to say, staring down the muddy lane that ran east through the darkening forest.

“Putting an animal out of pain is a good thing,” said Keun-ju, but he could afford to be sanguine about it, seeing as he had been the one to catch a rat instead of a pox-weakened cat. Many of the animals in this town seemed sick with something, but that just made the hunt all the more pathetic; what kind of hunters preyed on creatures too feeble to run or defend themselves? He had never seen wild animals with this sort of wasting disease, which made him wonder if the plague they suffered was their proximity to people.

“Yeah, screw this, I’ll just take the dog,” said Purna, sticking her hands in the cord-trimmed pockets of her doublet and turning back to town. “More of a cat person myself anyway, so Digs can suck it up or suck my butt, his choice.”

“… Yeah,” said Sullen, because while his keen eyes had just caught sight of a kitten peering out through the hollow window of a vacant shack that the forest was greedily gobbling with kudzu, there was an unspoken understanding among the gang that they wouldn’t use anything that wasn’t full grown. The old toms they’d found for Sullen and Hoartrap were already back at the abandoned temple the Touch had selected as being ideal for their purposes, and so Sullen carried the small squirming sack with Keun-ju’s rat so they could hold hands. “Never thought I’d do something like this. Don’t like it.”

“This I can handle, it’s what comes after that gives me pause,” said Keun-ju. “I cannot decide if it’s better or worse than just walking into a Gate. I am thinking worse.”

“Yeah, no, that’s what I mean,” said Sullen. “Bad enough to kill an animal you ain’t gonna eat and wear, it’s what happens next I don’t like, either.”

“Binding the devils, or having them send us to Jex Toth?” asked Purna.

“Both,” said Sullen and Keun-ju in unison, squeezing each other’s hands.

“Eh, that’s the fun part,” said Purna, and in the course of their adventures together Sullen had gotten to know the tapai well enough to believe this wasn’t just bluster. She really was that crazy. “What I don’t like is Digs’s crummy attitude, and I guarantee it’s only going to get crummier. Our last fucking night together and he’s being such a child.”

“Do you think if I offered him my rat it would change his mind?” asked Keun-ju as they tromped back across town toward the alley behind the mercantile where they had provisioned that morning, the lightning bugs the only streetlamps in this lonely village.

“It’s not just the sacrifice he’s objecting to, it’s binding them at all,” said the girl. “But if he hadn’t been keeping a bound devil all the time I’d known him I’d be dead already, so I really don’t appreciate this sudden moral high ground he’s found. It’s probably ’cause he had a devil before anyone else so now it’s passé. Meanwhile, the day I ditch my tired old style he snatches it out of the rubbish and dusts it off—you know what he did when I told him most other Ugrakari don’t eat meat except, uh, on holidays? Became a vegetarian!”

“You know, Purna, I used to look down on those people as well, but ever since I tried Raniputri cuisine I’ve found all sorts of—” Keun-ju began, but Purna cut him off.

“You’ve made it abundantly clear how much you love chutney and achaar! And I don’t look down on—ugh, so not the point!” Purna pointed at the cobalt cape Ji-hyeon had given Sullen, still wagging her big black tongue at a full gallop. “Can I borrow that for a minute? The point, Keun-ju, is Digs can do whatever he wants, but … but cutting out on us because he doesn’t think binding devils is cool anymore is sauce so weak you could use it to cut water!”

“I don’t think the pasha would refuse to take part in the ritual and join us in our quest unless he felt he had to,” said Sullen, holding the rat sack in his teeth and trying to untie the knot in the cape with his off hand.

“I agree,” said Keun-ju, letting go of Sullen’s hand and reaching up to take the satchel from his mouth with a smile that said while he appreciated the gesture his other arm wasn’t going to fall off the moment Sullen stopped holding it … but as soon as Sullen got the knot loose and swung the cape over to Purna he passed back the rat and took Sullen’s hand, and firmer than before. He might be doing a better job than Sullen of hiding his nervousness, but even more than the summoning of devils the prospect of using them to travel through the First Dark obviously terrified the brave poet.

“Well, sometimes you have to make hard choices,” said Purna, tossing the cape over one shoulder. Why she needed another layer in this heat when she was already sweating under her horned wolf cloak Sullen couldn’t guess. “Does he think any of us want to do this? Does he think I wouldn’t rather be taking a raunchy road trip to Diadem with Nemi and him and the monk? Fucking rescuing Maroto. Fucking saving the world and shit.”

“Ahhhh,” said Keun-ju, raising his eyebrow and the top of his veil as he gave Sullen a knowing look. “You are disappointed that Diggelby’s path diverges from our own, at least for a time, but are you also perhaps a little sore to not have any more music lessons in your immediate future?”

“Definitely a little sore, but the good kind, like you want,” said Purna, smacking her lips a couple of times and popping the rawhide drawstrings of her cloak. “And far as music lessons go, boys, I tell you what—I think I’m a savant. As a rule I don’t practice the singing sword and tell, but if I did—”

“But you don’t, you don’t,” said Keun-ju, looking a little flustered that his good-natured attempt to embarrass his friend had almost resulted in the sharing of more details than he wanted. Fortunately for his modesty they were passing through the town square with the ominous wooden ikon and gallows tree, and Purna became distracted by the nearby notice board pasted with wanted posters.

“Why won’t Nemi come with us?” Sullen called after her as she abruptly double-timed it out of the square. “Even my ma’s willing to do it, after I told her it’s the only way to reach my uncle and she could either come with or get left behind, and she’s got crazy-strong Chainite superstitions about trafficking with devils and such. So does your witch know something we don’t about Hoartrap and his schemes?”

“I bet she knows plenty about the Touch, but I haven’t gotten it out of her yet. One of the only things, if you want to—”

“We don’t!”

“But really now, did she give any reason for not doing it?” Sullen pressed, basically every song he’d ever heard about witches and devils and the First Dark telling him he ought to find an excuse to back out of this plan, even though it seemed like the only way forward. “And you said she’s going to Diadem instead?”

“She’s not taking part because she doesn’t bind devils, ever, under any circumstances,” said Purna, pulling off the cape Sullen had lent her as if just now realizing that even in the winter twilight Black Moth was hot as balls. They rounded the corner of the dingy mercantile, it and the surprisingly rowdy tavern across the way the only half-timbered buildings on the main street with all their windows lit. “Not all witches, Sullen, not all witches.”

“Her eggs aren’t devil eggs?” asked Keun-ju.

“They … I …” For some reason the mention of the witch’s mysterious eggs made Purna space out with a faint smile on her lips, pausing at the mouth of the alley. Then she shook it off, shaking out Sullen’s cape in the process. “She’s not like Hoartrap, okay? She hates his style of sorcery so much she faked her own death to get free of him, way back when. So while I can’t say how she does her thing, not being a witch myself, I can confirm it’s different. It doesn’t involve summoning devils, and it definitely doesn’t involve eating them. And so she’s going to drive her vardo to Diadem, since that’s where the closest Gate is, and use that to travel to Othean, where General Ji-hyeon is, and where we ought to be by the time she gets there.”

“If the monsters of Jex Toth weren’t already attacking the Isles, I’d say we’d all be better off doing that,” said Sullen. “But we’re already late to the ruckus as it is.”

“I don’t know,” said Keun-ju. “I don’t care how flippantly everyone is treating the practice these days, walking into a Gate … well. This way may not be better, but it can’t be worse.”

“Tell that to your rat,” said Purna, taking a deep breath and heading into the blind alley. “All right, the sooner we’re back with our sacrifices the sooner we can get stinko at that shitty tavern.”

“You want a hand?” asked Sullen.

“Nah, this is on me,” she called back. “If I’m going through with this the least I owe the mutt is being the one to carry him.”

“She’s going to get drunk before we summon devils?” Keun-ju didn’t sound like he approved.

“You got the sand to do it straight?” asked Sullen. “I don’t think I do. Not much to recommend about Hoartrap, but his saam is strong and he’s generous with it. And everyone knows burning a little before consorting with the powers of the First Dark shows the proper amount of respect.”

“Everyone knows that, do they?” said Keun-ju, and wiggling out of Sullen’s grip again he took his rat back. “The least I can do is carry it. That cape Purna borrowed is the one Ji-hyeon gave you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Seeing Purna come back out of the shadows between the buildings with a big lump wrapped in the blue wool, he sighed. “Yeah, that was it all right.”

“I’d offer to wash it for you, but I’ve got my hand full,” said Keun-ju, gesturing with his rat bag. Sullen wished he could play it cool for his friend, joke around or at least act nonchalant, but it was so ghoulish he must have made a face instead. This just made Keun-ju fall out giggling, the rare sound of his laughter over such a dark matter in such a dark place with the three of them on real dark business a portent, it seemed, of all the strangeness that lay ahead of them that night.

“What the hells are ya people doin’?!” The voice came from the upper window of the house behind the mercantile, on the far side of the alley. The room beyond was so dark there was no silhouette in the frame, just a black rectangle in the dirty grey wall. “I seen ya, creepin’ all over town, pokin’ yer nose every which way. Stealin’ what don’t belong to ya, s’if you owned the whole place and anythin’ ya found was yers for the takin’!”

“We’re not thieves!” Sullen protested, but perhaps too loudly in the quiet street, given Purna’s hissing at him to shut up.

“Words all over, yer rustlin’ cats! Our cats! And what ya go there, eh, s’at my devildamned dog?”

“This your dog, mister?” Purna called up.

“Devildamned right he is! You put ’im right back where ya—”

“Dog’s dead,” said Purna, and there was serious trouble in her tone. “From neglect, I’d say. Maybe abuse. So I’m gonna go out in the woods and bury this poor thing, and if I hear another fucking word from you on the matter I’m going to come straight back here and burn your fucking house down. With you in it.”

It was quiet for a moment, and then came the sound of the shutters being slammed.

“If I knew for sure it was his and he wasn’t just being a pain in the ass I’d torch that dump, I fucking swear it,” said Purna, steering them back toward the ruined church where the rest of their friends awaited them. The sick dog in her arms gave a faint whine, its tail limply wagging as she carried it, and with hearts a lot heavier than a rat in a sack, Sullen and Keun-ju followed.

Black Moth might be an ugly, dying town in the middle of a boggy, dangerous forest, populated mostly by rough-looking hunters, rougher-looking trappers, and roughest-looking charcoal burners, but one thing in this place’s defense was they evidently preferred their own ways to those of the Burnished Chain. That big ikon who shared the central square with the notice board and gibbet certainly didn’t resemble the Fallen Mother or any boring saint—the fellow had eight faces on his giant head, and in each of his five outstretched hands folk had heaped bloody pelts that buzzed with flies, and the swamp flowers and gourds set at his three feet were all fresh. The Chainite temple, by contrast, was outside of town altogether, on a small hill overrun with brambles and crumbling headstones. There were no doors on the small wooden church and the tiled roof had partially collapsed, and as they came up the slope in the gloaming the light spilling from the entrance and two big holes in the eaves reminded Sullen of the glowing skull Queen Beautiful carried to light her way through the Witch Wood. That noble ancestor had faced bad things in a deep dark forest and come out ahead, too, so perhaps tonight’s song would also have a happy ending.

As they stepped over the mossy lintel and saw what was in store for them, however, Sullen’s buoyant mood sank but fast. At the back of the one-room church a circular symbol had been laid out in red sand, a white taper set on a monstrous avian skull in its center, and standing just inside the outermost ring of the pentagram were the animals they had previously rounded up. Unhappy as they’d been at being caught and brought into the church, now they were all so still they looked stuffed, staring transfixed at the green flame rising from the candle. There was the black cat Sullen had first brought back, and the tabby he had found for Hoartrap, and the badger his mother had scared up. She had initially returned with a scrawny opossum, but Hoartrap said he didn’t work with the animals anymore. When called out for being superstitious, he’d shrugged and said that went with his job description.

“The three hunters return,” said Hoartrap without looking up from his pack, rooting around in its cavernous interior. “Best is off again, but as soon as Sullen’s sainted mother returns we can take this puss-and-pony show on the road. Well, and as soon as I find my—aha!”

“Where did everybody go?” asked Keun-ju, but as he addressed Hoartrap he was staring at the strange sight at the back of the church. “I did not see the witch’s wolf and cart.”

“They haven’t left yet, have they?” Purna sounded a little frantic, face flushed from carrying the dog she still held in her arms. “Where do I put this? I need to catch them before they go!”

“They’re long gone by now,” said Hoartrap, smiling to himself as he removed a small bronze pyramid from his pack. Looking up at the distraught Purna, he said, “To the pub. They assumed they’d run into you on the walk. I am to understand, then, that you haven’t even begun your protracted boo-hooing over the temporary sundering of your fellowship?”

“My ma’s with ’em?” asked Sullen, the image of Diggelby and his mom sitting across the table from one another adding up to a bad scene or a good story in one hell of a hurry, and either way he wanted to be on hand.

“She is, and set that dog anywhere, and—get away from there!” Hoartrap went from an affable tone to a bellow, and following the sorcerer’s angry movements Sullen saw that Keun-ju had walked right up to the sandy edge of the symbol. He swayed in place a moment, and then Hoartrap snatched the sack out of his hand and poked him in the chest. “Did I tell you to stare at the candle? No? Then don’t stare at the candle!”

“I … what?” Keun-ju sounded sleepy, taking an awkward step back from the irate Touch and rubbing his eyes. “You did not tell us not to.”

“I didn’t tell you not to,” Hoartrap parroted. “Listen up, kiddies, for the rest of the night you just assume that I don’t want you to do anything unless I expressly tell you to.”

“I’m going to the tavern, have a few for the road with Digs and Nemi,” said Purna, depositing the old hound on the floor. It was still wrapped in Sullen’s cloak but he didn’t have the heart to ask for it back now.

“Yes, yes, because what did I just say?” asked Hoartrap. “I can’t remember, was it do exactly what I tell you, as this is a very sensitive operation, or was it go get shit-hammered with my worthless apprentice and your cowardly friend?”

“We are joining the pasha for a final round,” said Keun-ju, following Purna out. “That is not up for debate.”

“Oh, well then, excuuuuse me!” said Hoartrap, reaching into the sack and then making a lewd face. “Your little assistant is giving me a love bite. Who wants to take a wager on which of us gets sick from the exchange?”

“We won’t be long,” said Sullen, pausing in the doorway. “Can I bring you anything from town?”

“You can,” said Hoartrap, pulling the squirming rat out of the bag and inspecting it in the candlelight as it dug its teeth into his enormous hand. “Find me some new heroes. Failing that … a sandwich.”

“Safe,” said Sullen, heading out and down the hill after Purna and Keun-ju, the distant buildings of Black Moth almost as dark as the surrounding forest. Come to think it, though, that was always how’d it been back home, too—you didn’t waste good blubber on lighting up your nights, and the peat smoldering in the firepit didn’t cast enough light to leak outside. His ma was right, he’d become an Outlander himself, accustomed to their ways, from mundane things like keeping lamps lit half the night to more exotic practices, like picking up take-away for a devil-eating witch.

Looking down at the spear in his hand, he said, “Sorry, Fa, know you wouldn’t appreciate my associating with him.”

The spear didn’t speak back, much as he wished it would … silly a thought as that was, it seemed like something that’d happen in the sagas, if an old warrior got turned into a weapon. Even before Hoartrap had explained what the spear was made of, that Ji-hyeon had commissioned it when she found out there would be some of the sainted steel left after making her sword, Sullen had just known the old man was in the blade. How was that for silly?

Except there wasn’t a damn thing silly about what was going to happen next. His mother had finally seemed to be thawing a little, only to go full hardarsed again after their long trek back into Black Moth, and now, this very night, Sullen was going to raise a devil and bind it to his will. Fa would be so disappointed. And more surprising than Diggelby’s refusal to take part in the rite was Ma’s casual agreement to the plan … but then he supposed if she saw it as a feat of courage that her soft son was Horned Wolf enough to accept then she couldn’t very well back down. That was what being a born-again Chainite got you in this day and age, pride so unwavering you could be peer-pressured into taking part in unmistakably evil rituals.

What would she do when she saw her brother, he wondered? Not so much of an if, anymore, now that Hoartrap had recovered the magic post from whatever swampy shore it had washed up on. Sullen had finally come around to his uncle, at least in theory, to giving him the benefit of the doubt until he could be heard out. But while Ma had given her word to wait until the armies of Jex Toth were defeated to sort things with Maroto and Sullen, what if after all that they still couldn’t squash the beef and she demanded blood?

Then you kill the mad wolf. It was a forceful thought, frighteningly so, but his wounds throbbed as soon as he doubted it, and his heart throbbed worse when he looked ahead to Keun-ju’s lopsided silhouette as he and Purna stepped down from the church path and onto the road. Kill the wolf.

That was putting the cart before the giant monster, though—first they had devils to summon, a trip through the First Dark clear over to the Sunken Kingdom, a rescue mission if Maroto was captured, as Hoartrap feared, and then a reunion with Ji-hyeon at Othean, all before the war against Jex Toth could begin in earnest. No sense worrying about troubles yet to arrive when he had plenty sitting around his fire already. A Flintland lad like him, taking a shortcut through the First Dark … the First Dark, where the Faceless Mistress dwelled, if Sullen had to guess her address when she wasn’t manifesting in Emeritus to terrify poor mortals. Hard as it was to shake the feeling that she was always watching him here, under the plain night sky, what might happen when he dared traverse her realm?

Only one way to find out. It was a lesson Grandfather had worn his sharp tongue dull trying to impress into Sullen, but it had taken meeting Ji-hyeon and following her brave example to make it stick: sometimes you just had to ruddy well do a thing, instead of hoping you could fret it to death. Instead of putting it off and putting it off and putting it off, the way he had with figuring out the Faceless-Mistress-versus-Zosia problem, and so much else in his life, this time he had to grab the wolf by the horns. Somewhere halfway across the Star Ji-hyeon needed him, was waiting on him to come back to her, and bring Keun-ju along in the bargain … and no god nor devil nor mortal nor monster could stop him.

But first a quick drink in a local tavern on a warm winter night here in the Crimson Empire, where nobody seemed to know the world was on the very rim of ruin. After all they’d been through of late, everyone deserved one last quiet night before things got very loud indeed.

Their crew was posted up in the pub, all right, though Nemi must have parked her horned wolf somewhere out in the woods to avoid causing a scene. Or a bigger scene, anyway. Diggelby had dressed up even more than usual for the occasion, which was saying something indeed—his mirrored turban was firing off beams of reflected lamplight every which way, and his black-and-white dashiki matched his corpsepaint. Plant that in any Imperial small-town bar and you’d have yourself a local talking point for weeks to come, and that was without adding on a pierced-up girl with a funky-looking feathered walking stick. Or a gem-eyed Chainite monk in a town that must have been converted at some point only to come clear back around to worshipping a pagan deity what lived in their town square. And topping it all off was a big, sour-mugged Flintlander with war braids hanging down from her horned helmet … not that anyone here knew that those braids and that helm signified a Horned Wolf who was on the hunt and not particular about where her meat came from, so long as it was fresh.

“They look like the setup for some bad joke,” said Purna as they stood on the porch of the tavern, taking turns peering through a hole in the parchment-paned window. She’d been nervous about going in for some reason, probably regretting hastily spoken words said in anger to the pasha … or regretting words not said at all to Nemi. Burning the beedi Sullen had copped from Hoartrap that morning had finally put her back in her usual good temper, though. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one—a Flintlander, a Chainite, a noble, and a witch walk into a bar.”

“It’s about to get … sillier,” said Keun-ju, letting out the hit he’d been holding. Croak-voiced from the smoke, he said, “And then a studly wildborn, an Ugrakari tapai, and a dashing Immaculate poet all join them.”

“Stud … lee?” Sullen tried to parse it through the saam haze. “Like … I got studs on me?”

“No no, like a—” Keun-ju began, but Purna interrupted, which was something of her specialty.

“Guys, I’m not a tapai,” she said heavily. “You’re my friends, too, and I can’t lie to my squad anymore. I’m from a merchant family, not a noble one. By the peaks of my homeland, I hope this gets easier.”

“Doesn’t everybody know that already?” said Keun-ju. “There are only thirty-six tapais, obviously, hence the joke that you’re the … wait, were you actually trying to deceive people? Who could possibly fall for that!”

“Um …” said Sullen, stubbing the beedi out because obviously none of them needed any more and tucking the roach into his mostly empty bandolier. “I believed it, but for real, I never even heard of a tapai until me and Fa met you, Purna. You always been princely to me, though, and that matters more than who bore you. One of the things I really liked about Ji-hyeon’s cause was the idea of getting rid of all them … distinctions. No more nobles or any of that.”

“Easy for a princess to say that, especially when people are still doing what she says.” Seeing Keun-ju tense up, Purna hastened to add, “Not a burn on our general, just saying.”

“Well, just say it inside,” said Sullen. The conversation turning to Ji-hyeon reminded him that while they were all talking trash on a stoop, his beloved was stuck on the Isles with a horde of monsters breathing down her neck. Keun-ju’s beloved, too. One of them, anyway. “We have a single drink, and then we’re out.”

“Your melon’s gone sour if you think we’re leaving before the barkeep,” said Purna, moving to the owlbatwing doors.

“I mean it,” said Sullen, the saam making him twitchy instead of relaxed, his heart pounding. “We can celebrate properly with the pasha when we’re all together in Othean and the war’s won. But every round we’re sitting here on our arses is another hour Ji-hyeon and Maroto and the rest of the Cobalt Company are in danger, without us around to pitch in.”

“It’s cute you think a round takes an hour, too,” said Purna, disappearing inside.

“Hey, are you all right?” asked Keun-ju, putting his hand on Sullen’s bicep. It was only at the man’s light touch that Sullen realized how tense he was, squeezing his spear fit to breaking. And as if by sorcery, that physical connection sapped all the worry out of Sullen, leaving him high but happy.

“Yeah, I’m good,” said Sullen, and slyly added, “Be better if you let me under that veil again, if just to see what a handsome fellow I’ve caught.”

“As a veteran Virtue Guard it takes more than pretty words to compromise my own,” said Keun-ju airily, his fingers on Sullen’s arm doing a light little dance. “How about you buy me a drink?”

“Ah dang,” said Sullen. “Would if I could, but I keep forgetting about money.”

“I’ll buy you one, then, and say you owe me something in return,” said Keun-ju, darting up on his tiptoes to give Sullen a peck through his veil. The feel of silk barricading Keun-ju’s lips only inflamed Sullen more, especially now that he knew how sweet they really were, but the boy nodded to the door. “Coming?”

“It’ll take more than that, but not much,” said Sullen.

“Sullen of the Frozen Savannahs, was that a dirty joke?”

“Maybe?” said Sullen wolfishly. “It’s been ages since I had any relief, so maybe not.”

“Not a bad gag, either, all things considered,” said Keun-ju. “But come along, and none of that in front of your mother.”

“No, definitely not.” Damn but Keun-ju knew how to quench a fire as fast as he’d kindled it.

The Pig’s Ear Tavern was far busier than it had been on their first stopover in Black Moth, when there’d only been a few grizzled souls; now there must be near on a hundred, every one of the tree-trunk tables occupied and both the bar at the back and the roaring fireplace thronged. The open room was so thick with woodsmoke, tubq smoke, and saam smoke that it stung Sullen’s eyes, and threading among the coarse crowd he couldn’t help but notice how pungent most of these locals were. Not everyone had time or coin to stop over at the bathhouse, true, but some of them smelled like they’d rolled in offal and rinsed off with cat piss. No longer irritated by the smoke, he kept his nose in the clouds and huffed as much as he could until he reached his friends.

“Last to arrive, first to buy!” Purna damn near screamed to be heard over the mob. Despite having come in just before them she’d managed to snag a stool and a drink, load a pipe, and plant Nemi on her lap. The witch looked all the taller for sitting on the smaller woman, puffing a long-stemmed pipe of her own. Sullen put his empty hands in the air, but Diggelby tossed him a pouch so heavy it hurt his palm.

“It was in here all along!” cried the fop, pointing at his turban. “Buy a case of something nice; whatever’s left over we can drink on the road!”

“Shall I help?” asked Keun-ju, maybe not so inclined to be left alone with this crew. Nemi and Purna were ignoring the others, talking with their faces all in close, and Diggelby was blithely rambling at the stone-eyed monk and Sullen’s stone-faced mother.

“Ehh, looks like a tight fit at the bar, I can manage,” Sullen said in Keun-ju’s ear. His delicate ear that sang out for a nibbling. Buzzed as Sullen was he almost went for it, but remembering his mother sitting just across the table, decided not to … lest he embarrass Keun-ju, not because he gave a damn what she thought anymore. “But hey, can you hold my spear?”

Keun-ju said something Sullen didn’t hear, but when the Immaculate winked a big brown eye at Sullen he guessed the gist of it, passing the weapon over with a smile of his own. Then he headed off on a quest as arduous as any Boldstrut had endured—getting service as an Outlander at a busy local watering hole while doped to the gills on wizard saam. And just his luck, between him and the long black bartop was a gang of brutes as hatchet-faced as any Sullen had ever met, and armed to the teeth the lot of them.

“Make way, make way,” bawled the biggest bruiser of them all as Sullen approached, a Raniputri with extra eyes tattooed all over his face and a braided beard so long he wore it tied around his neck like a noose. Which just went to show you never could tell, because the rest of the heavies all heaved over to one side, the tattooed man offering a warm smile and then turning back to his chums as Sullen slipped between them and the huddle of hunters on the other side.

Planting his elbows on the buffed ebon bar, Sullen kept Diggelby’s pouch hidden from view in his fist, but when one of the flustered barkeeps came by he gave it a jingle. Back in Thao the pasha had insisted on teaching Sullen all the tricks, and sure enough this got the woman’s attention, but instead of taking his order right away she held up a finger and moved on, only returning a few minutes later.

“What?” she demanded, eyes bloodshot and short-shorn head lathered in sweat.

“Case of something nice, please,” he said in Crimson. Or hoped he said, anyway.

“A case?” she looked incredulous. “No.”

“Uh, many bottles?” Shit, he had been sure the word was case. “Bottles in box? Cost much, but I pay. Please?”

She must have taken pity on him, then, because her features softened and she said a few intelligible words and then the Immaculate word for the Immaculate tongue.

“For sure!” he said in the same, always relieved when he didn’t have to limp along in Crimson. “A case of your finest, uh, anything, if you please, and don’t worry—I’ve got coin in hand.”

“Oh, sweetheart, no,” said the barkeep. “You might’ve noticed we’re a little busy tonight?”

“Uhhh … yeah?”

“So I can’t sell anyone more than a bottle a head. I start selling more and pretty soon the cellar’s empty, and what am I supposed to do when the rest of the regiment comes through, huh? Hope they understand why the only tavern in town is dry and not make sport some other way?”

“The … the rest of the what now?” Maybe Sullen’s Immaculate wasn’t so good after all, because it sounded like she said …

“The Eyvindian regiment,” said the barkeep, gesturing at the full house. “These rats might not look so bad just yet, but wait until the rest of the swarm arrives. They’re headed south, obviously, to which I say go north if you can—nastiest army in the Empire. After what Cold Cobalt did to them back in the day I can’t say I’m surprised the survivors decided that honor and fighting fair and all the rest was a fool’s errand, but there’s such a fucking thing as a middle ground. These are the same scumdogs who killed the priest and wrecked the church, oh, eight or nine years ago. A touch unhappy he didn’t have more communion wine to share with the needy. So you can see why I’m reluctant to sell you a case, no?”

“Uh … yeah?” Sullen really, really wished he hadn’t smoked that beedi. “But … but they’re not wearing any red?”

“They’re scouts,” said the barkeep, “so they ain’t very well going to call attention to that, are they? But look, you’re the first person who’s said please all night so I wanted to tip you off in case you didn’t know, and now that you do let’s complete our transaction so I can go back to praying these shitbirds don’t raze my place.”

“Sure, yeah, thanks,” said Sullen woozily. “I’ll just get the bottle, then, thanks.”

As the exchange was made and Sullen turned around to find himself blocked in by reeking bodies, he indeed began to pick out Imperial trappings underneath the heavy furs and leather capes—an ornamental officer’s dagger here, an ostentatious blackened chain there, shitty tattoos in Crimson script on many a sweaty neck. He was also stuck, surrounded by Imperial scouts he was suddenly very leery about just pushing through lest he get them riled. But just then the big Raniputri guy rescued him a second time, careening in for another drink himself and clearing a hole for Sullen to wiggle through … or so it looked, anyway, but when he went for it the crowd shifted and they were crammed chest to chest in the press.

“One bottle for your whole table?” the man observed as they did the awkward dance of shuffling in opposite directions. “That can’t even be enough for Purna!”

“Yeah, well, she’ll have to share for a change,” muttered Sullen, floating free and clear of the Raniputri and oozing further through the mob of what he now knew to be the enemy. He was starting to freak the fuck out, but he just needed to hold it together a little longer, just get the whole crew outside before they were recognized as Cobalts …

The table came into sight, as did a path through the pack, but as he quickened his pace a git even smaller than Purna stepped backward into his path, and he nearly bowled the wee man over. Sullen caught him by the shoulder before he fell, praise the ancestors. The last thing he fucking needed was to make a scene, and as soon as he saw the apologetic smile on the kid’s face he knew there’d be no trouble here … but then the boy’s features twisted into a hideous grimace. He screamed, shrill and clear as a whistle, eyes bulging out. Sullen couldn’t figure it out, didn’t even recognize the piker until he whipped out a rusty serrated knife and jabbed it straight into Sullen’s gut.

It didn’t hurt so much as jog his memory, the whole tavern suddenly going quiet, the kid still screaming as he twisted the blade. That brought the pain, Sullen howling even louder than his attacker, and bad as the cramping agony was, the realization that he knew this boy hurt worse. It was the fucking weakbow kid. The Cobalt runt who had accidentally killed Grandfather and then lit out from the plateau above the camp instead of waiting for Sullen to return, the way he’d promised. And now, adding grave injury to that already serious insult, he’d apparently gone and killed Sullen, too.