"Only one you'll find in these woods. Here, thought you'd find this interesting." He passed over a torn flyer, and by the light of their fire she saw two familiar words blackening its surface. Even now they made her throb with something approaching awe. She looked Heretic in the eye. "You believe, do you?"

"I believe in what she stands for," said Heretic, setting their camp cauldron on its tripod. "Got you some bean mush and weeds, since I know how much you hate the saltpork we've been living off, pious girl like you."

"And what does Zosia stand for, then?" Portoles thought she had a fair understanding already, but it never hurt to ask for more details. "Freedom from the yoke of the oppressor? For your comrades, anyway?"

"Freedom for all," said Heretic. "No gods, devils, nor other scapegoats. No queens, popes, nor other vampires. Just people, helping each other."

"And if you have to kill a few hundred thousand people who disagree with you, well, that's not a bad cost, is it?" Portoles rather enjoyed playing his part, could see the sport he'd found in baiting her. "Open your eyes, Heretic; she was just another despot, peddling the same old story under a new name. Nothing more."

"Nothing less, either," said Heretic, looking up to where the paltry light of their fire faded into a darkness that was all the deeper for their having kindled a flame. As if he saw the answer there, in the night, he said, "Thing is, sister, I'm beginning to wonder if some of the crackpots in our party weren't on to something. The ones who say she's still alive. People really believe it out here in the Empire, too, you can tell they do-maybe she's rotting in some Diadem dungeon. Maybe death was too good for her, by Indsorith's thinking. When the overlords start reading your tracts instead of just burning them, you have to wonder..."

Portoles did wonder, as she had most every day since setting out, how Heretic would react if she told him the simple truth: Zosia lived. This knowledge she so easily carried within her sullied, bestial body was a weapon so powerful it might change the fate of the Empire, the fate of the Star. She had stumbled on a secret, the secret, and through the trust of her queen, an anonymous anathema had become transformed into a force of unspeakable influence. Like all weapons, she could be destroyed or cast aside, but if she could reach Zosia in time and convince her that the queen hadn't ordered Hjortt to attack Kypyk, she could win a war before it was even fought. Not bad for a chained-up witchborn who still had nightmares of screaming peasants dying under her orders.

"You've got that look again, Portoles," said Heretic, watching her closely. "That look like maybe you know something of what I speak? Like maybe that's why you wanted a rebel to ride with you, and not just because you could rely on me to fight any Imperials or Chainites that came after you. You wanted an expert on all things Cobalt."

"Now what would make you say such a thing, Heretic?"

"You're the worst damned bluffer I've ever seen. Here's a confession for you, sister, and it's been a long time coming..." Portoles perked up, couldn't help herself. "That book you've been reading down to the fibers, the one you took from the Office..."

"The one you wrote, Heretic?" Portoles hungered for his revelation the way she still hungered for Brother Wan. "That book?"

"That's the one," said Heretic, and like many who offer a confession, he looked half gleeful, half disgusted. "I didn't write it. Haven't even read it. Was an old bird in our party, Eluveitie, was working on it. She was in the Asking Chamber, too, though I didn't see where."

"Confession sets us free to see the Fallen Mother," said Portoles soberly, liking Heretic more than ever. "Did you take the credit to spare her especial attention from the Askers, or to gamble on finding yourself a way out?"

"I..." Heretic spit, which gave her answer enough. He didn't know himself. "Doesn't matter. We'll both hear some answers right quick, sister. Some lasses I met in town said they'd been hunting along the front of the Kutumbans, but beat it across the plains because the Cobalt Company's pitched a camp right in front of some mountain they call Bird Tongue."

Portoles felt the darkness at the edge of their firelight contract, as though the night itself had held its breath. She'd prayed, of course, prayed hard and long that Heretic would take this road. He was curious enough that it seemed possible, but she hadn't let herself believe, not until she heard the words from his own lips, but now that he'd said it she knew there had never been a question. What Queen Indsorith had planted inside Portoles could only be released when she met Zosia, and recognized her for the old mayoress. Then and only then would Portoles ascend from too-faithful servant and admittedly lousy messenger to savior of incalculable lives. Or destroyer, it was all a matter of perspective-once Zosia heard that the Black Pope had probably sent Hjortt to murder her husband and raze her town, would she seek an alliance with Queen Indsorith to go after the true perpetrator? Would the information Portoles delivered prevent the coming war between the Cobalt Company and the Crimson Empire but bring about a final, fatal civil war between the Empire and the Burnished Chain, with Zosia's army marching alongside Imperial regiments? Would she prevent an imminent massacre, only to cause a greater one? The seed cannot predict if it will become wheat or snakeroot, or what use its crop will be put to...

"You all right, sister?" Heretic looked concerned, but not concerned enough to leave his steaming stew pot.

"Never better," said Portoles, wiping tears from her cheeks. "You mentioned... the Cobalt Company?"

"Aye, I'm sure you've heard enough to know the stories behind them. A flesh-and-blood army led by a blue-haired ghost. If you believe the legends, which I'm not so sure I do. Whoever truly leads them, though, they'll be happy to have a war nun delivered to their door, especially one on a secret mission for Diadem. Seems like my people back in the capital have the same enemy and the same strategy, so why not throw in with these Cobalts?" Heretic watched her intently. "Nothing to say to that?"

Portoles fought to keep the relief off her face. She should have just freed Heretic from the onset and followed him after her quarry, trusting that higher powers had set him in her path as a human bloodhound. The uncertainty of what would happen when she finally caught Zosia filled her with unspeakable raptures, uncertainty about whether she brought miraculous peace or delivered infernal war, and she shuddered against her bonds. "I say you were dead right from the first, Asker Boris: we'll both have some answers before much longer. Now what do you say you loosen these chains enough so we can play some cards?"

CHAPTER.

17.

Maroto's wounds hadn't festered and none of his bones were broken, but other than the barber's welcome report he didn't have much to feel good about. Of all the hells he'd waded through, of all the nightmares he'd lived, he'd never imagined one as dread as this. Zosia, beautiful, brilliant Zosia, alive... and she hated him.

Well, to get real about it, that wasn't quite right. But bloody well close enough. If she'd hated him she would have thought of him from time to time. This was so much worse-she'd been off somewhere for twenty years, doing devils knew what, with devils knew whom, and she'd never once dropped him a clue that she was still alive, because he didn't even warrant her notice. If he'd died back when she was Cobalt Queen-or if he'd seemed to, anyway-she wouldn't have carried a candle for him, wouldn't have missed him every day, the way he had for her. She didn't give an easy shit about him. Never had, like as not.

"Come on, old man, I thought it was your kin over there they called Sullen, not you!" Diggelby swayed in front of the bonfire, dancing shapes limned against the night behind him. He held out a bottle, and Maroto took it, though he'd already drained enough to fell a dozen lesser drunks. Scowling across the fire at him was Sullen, though the pup hadn't brought Da to the party. Maroto waggled the bottle at his kin, who spit into the fire and looked away. Right, it was time to get something more than a shit-eyed stare out of that punk, find out what his beef was, and how bloody a cut it was...

"Whoa, steady on, man!" said Diggelby, catching Maroto as he took a wobbly step and nearly pitched into the fire. "Here, you lazy lumps, clear a seat! Dance for your captain's pleasure, or pay the price!"

Din and Hassan dutifully rose from a nearby divan, clapping Maroto on the back and saying the sort of overly cheerful crap you always fed to people you felt sorry for. Maroto wondered if there was a single cart horse or guard dog that hadn't heard about his encounter with Zosia that morning. Collapsing onto the couch, Diggelby pressed something into his hand. Something wriggling.

"A graveworm. Magica, the best!" whispered Diggelby. "It's good for what ails you, Captain. Just make sure not to chew it!"

"Know what to do with it," grumbled Maroto, the old hunger upon him as soon as he felt its carapace in his palm. It'd been right around a year since he'd been stung, so a graveworm would be just the creepy-crawly to ease him back into the habit... Though at his prime he'd gulped a dozen at a time, when he couldn't find bees or centipedes, and barely felt a thing.

"Good chap," said Diggelby, doing a clumsy Mustakrakish two-step away from the recumbent Maroto. "Don't forget who gave him to you, once the cryptcrawler's in your legs and you're ready for a first dance!"

"Uh-huh," said Maroto, opening his hand and watching the graveworm squirm in his fist. Purna bumped into Diggelby, danced off him with far better moves, and after a few twists and turns, she practically fell on top of Maroto.

"What've you got there, Moochroto?" she asked, sitting on the arm of the seat and rubbing his shoulder. "Whoa, hey, Diggelby give you that? No call for that shit, man, you told me you were off the bugs for good."

"Told you lots of stuff," said Maroto, admiring the way its papery shell shimmered in the firelight.

"Yeah, you did," said Purna. "Look, I know... I know it sucks, right, but banging bugs over a girl? That's not your style, Maroto. You're better than that."

"Better than what?" sneered Maroto, and popped the graveworm into his mouth. It tickled his tongue, and he dry-swallowed it, savoring the way it fought against the inevitable even as it went down. Just like people, bugs were, once you got acquainted with them. He regretted it even before Purna bolted up, slapped the back of his head.

"I love you, man, but you need to grow the fuck up already," she snapped.

"That's rich, coming from a brat who wants to play war because she thinks murdering people's a laugh." He regretted that, too, but she didn't hit him again. If anything, she softened a little.

"Look. You decide to stop feeling sorry for yourself tomorrow, let me know and we'll split this waste before lunch. Go to any Arm you want. But I won't ride out with a stinghound. Think about it, Maroto-adventure with me and the gang, or kill yourself with bugs because you can't let go of a dream. It's up to you, buddy."

"Yeah?" Getting the fuck away from here definitely sounded like a plan.

"Yeah. You take tonight to throw yourself the biggest pity-party you ever had, and in the morning we go. Promise." She looked like he must, heartbroken for no good reason, and, giving his hand a squeeze, she set her shoulders and got down to some serious dancing.

Maroto felt better already, the graveworm hitting him harder, faster, meaner than he expected. Good old Diggelby probably had a crate of cemetery dirt loaded with the things, and once they were free and clear of the Cobalt Company, who knew what sort of sport they could find? Ride over the mountains and knock off some Dominion stinghouses, set up a mobile operation... invest in a rolling aquarium like they'd had in the Wastes, but stocked with centipede warrens. Ooh, or maybe combine the design with an ice cart to keep the icebees cool, have a whole bloody apiary on wheels. Nice.

And there she fucking was again, appearing by the fire with Hoartrap. Girl knew how to suck the air from a party, bringing that monster. She caught sight of him, and he bobbed his bottle at her, fully expecting her to turn away, give him the low visor all night. That was how she'd always played it in the old days, after a kind word or gesture on his part got taken the wrong way. Instead, she made a beeline for him, and he hauled himself upright to meet her charge. Get ready, you fuckers, the night's entertainment has arrived, another stupid fight for no reason at all...

"Hey," said Zosia, standing in front of the divan. "Got enough room for a big-boned broad on that couch?"

"Sure," he said, wondering if the graveworm was giving him the walking dreams. Eat enough of those things and you'll see all kinds of shit. "Yeah, definitely."

She sat down next to him, stiff as a lance. She was stiff, like, not him... Devils, but this worm had turned since last he'd gulped one; he could barely keep his thoughts out of his mouth, or his mouth out of... Devils. He took a pull from the bottle to sober himself up, tasted every grain and hop that had gone into the pale Raniputri ale, handed it to her. She took a swig, then another. Smiled at him.

"Sorry about earlier," she said. "I'm... shit, man."

"Yeah, definitely," said Maroto again, nodding. "I mean, me, too. I was... I was excited to see you, was all. Didn't mean anything by it."

Her look told him this wasn't quite doing it, so he dug deeper, tried harder, hooked some of the stuff Purna had laid on him earlier that afternoon in his tent.

"Nobody likes getting grabbed like that. I wouldn't, Diggelby kissed me like that. Me being happy to see you's no excuse."

There was the smile again, and she huffed in that cute way that let him know they were in the mend-things-up stage, and in record time. Maybe she had missed him! "Which one's Diggelby?"

"That crustfop, dancing with Purna."

"Wow. Yeah, he looks terrible."

"Diggelby's all right. They all are. Solid."

"So it's true, then?" Zosia took out a pipe and pouch from her hip-bag, blind-packed it while overlooking the crowd of revelers. "Mighty Maroto took a pack of princelings under his wing?"

"Kids saved my life, no joke," he said, nervous she would ask him what had happened to the briar she'd carved him.

"I heard you lot saddled up a pack of horned wolves and rode them into an Imperial camp last week. Any truth in that?"

Maroto laughed, almost couldn't stop, then calmed his happy arse down. "Not much. A good song, though."

"Definitely," said Zosia. "Be right back, I'm going to get this going. You have one you want me to light?"

Shit shit shit. Anxiously scratching the side of his flattop, he inadvertently dislodged a cigarillo he'd bummed off Din earlier in the evening and tucked behind his ear. Salvation! "Sure, fire this dog for me."

"And I thought you only sucked sticks for coin," said Zosia with a wink, and headed over to the fire. She still had those legs, and her arse had filled out nicely, still tight with muscle but widened with age. Dark thoughts, Maroto, dark indeed-she looked a sight better than he did these days. When she returned, he took the cigarillo and puffed contentedly on it.

"What's with your kid? He got it in for me to make a name for himself, or what?"

"Kid?" Maroto followed her gaze and saw that Sullen was still glaring at them. Hard to believe it possible, but the kid looked even meaner, now that Maroto had some company. "Nephew. And I'm the one he's coming hard at."

"Yeah? The way Choplicker's been nodding at him, I thought for sure it was me he was sore on, for some reason I've long forgot or never knew. That ball-licking devil's always liked you, though, so maybe that's all it is, Choplicker looking out for his old litter mate." Zosia waved at Sullen, beckoned him over, but he pretended not to see her. "Aw, he's playing hard to get. Think you're going to live another night, Maroto."

"Scary fucking savage is giving me the death eyes and she says it's nothing to worry about." Maroto shook his head happily. He had half a mind to go give Sullen a hug. "Where is Slopchops, anyway? Didn't used to let him out of your sight."

"You know how they get when Hoartrap comes around, decided to go easy on him," she said, the unasked question of Crumbsnatcher dangling between them. Let it fucking dangle all the way down to the lowest hell. "Anyway, what's the nephew's story? That your dad I saw riding him before?"

"Yeah, that's Da," said Maroto, trying to blow a smoke ring and fucking it all up. "Still haven't figured out what their song is. That was the first I knew they were alive, when you decided to haunt my arse. Hadn't said ten words to 'em, and haven't said one since."

"No shit?"

"Not even a toot," said Maroto, delighted to see her shake her head and grin at his wit. "They were the whole reason I cut out on my clan the second time 'round, you know? Thought about it lots, sure, but never would have left if..."

"Second time 'round? You went back?" She poked him in the ribs. "Come on, dish."

"Shit, where to start?" Where to start indeed-maybe with Zosia playing him so hard he'd wrecked his life trying to avenge her, when she hadn't even had the decency to really die? He had half a mind to make her sing first, but this was his couch, sort of, and that made him host, and hosts take the first round. Some rules can't be bent. "Um... okay, yeah, so a ways back, I... I got burned out on, well, everything, so I decided to head back to the Savannahs. Go home, you know? Start over."

"You always said they'd kill you if they ever saw that ugly mug again." Zosia blew a perfect smoke ring with those perfect lips.

"Oh, they wanted to, and they would have, definitely," said Maroto, feeling the glares of the Horned Wolf council burning at him from across time and space. "But I figured the one thing that would settle me with the old bastards who run the clan was a big show of contrition. Of the physical sort, yeah? So I brought along what was left of my nest egg and laid it at their feet, told 'em that ever since I ran away as a pup I'd been working up enough dosh to come back and atone. Wonder of wonders, they let me back in."

"Some things are the same the Star over."

"True. I had to duel the meanest Wolf in the clan, too, but I think Da went easy on me, so it weren't no thing." Weren't no thing but a mark on his belly where his father had nearly gutted him in the honor pit, but what family didn't leave its scars? "Um, and since I'd left before I'd earned my name, I had to take the one they decided on for me."

"Which was..." From the gleam in Zosia's eye he wondered if she already knew.

"Not important. Anyway, after all that, I was a Horned Wolf again. Was weird, you know? Going from who I was when I rode with you, sleeping in palaces, to sharing the old floor cot with Da and my sister and her babe... That'd be Sullen, there, when he was but an ankle-biter. Sweetest kid I ever saw, too, wonder what soured him so."

Except Maroto knew, of course, knew without a doubt: it was him. Who else? The closer he got to folk the deeper their frowns, and you don't get closer than blood.

"I gather your retirement didn't go much better than mine," said Zosia, teasing him like she always did with the promise of a good song.

"Definitely not. At first things were better than I expected-I wasn't just trying to fit in, I was trying to be the best Horned Wolf in the clan. Followed every little rule." Which was true to the letter; the clan never imagined a Horned Wolf would intentionally stick his arm in the hives on a daily basis, and so there was no law forbidding it-why get yourself stung when the snowmead they produced was a far milder and nicer buzz? Da had told Maroto only the shamans of old ever let the icebees kiss their flesh, bringing them portents in peace or vigor in war, so the first time had just been an experiment, see if the bugs of his people were anything like the stinging insects he'd used a time or two during the Cobalt War, when one of the Villains needed field surgery but didn't need to feel it... Turned out icebees agreed with Maroto like few things ever had, rendering the sharp memories of his murdered beloved and his failure to avenge her into a dull dream, transforming a washed-up loser who did nothing but ponder the mistakes of the past into a proper Horned Wolf who pondered nothing at all, doing only what was expected of him-he'd floated through his days and nights in the Savannahs like a man resigned to drowning, drifting through the numbing depths of the freezing sea...

"You still with me, Maroto?" said Zosia, nudging him with the bottle.

"Sure, sure," said Maroto, accepting the warm beer and draining the witchpiss in the bottom. Damn graveworm hadn't ridden him this hard since he didn't know when-the kids must get better bugs in the old capital than he'd ever been able to afford. "Just getting my thoughts sorted. See, I did some dumb stuff after you... after I thought you died. Felt pretty low, and wanted to prove to myself I could still be of worth, somewhere, to someone, even if it was just the craziest fucking clan on the Noreast Arm. And I fell right back into it, which was even stranger because some of my people had converted since the time I'd left."

"Converted to what?"

"The Chain, man, the Burnished Chain-you believe that shit? While I ran off to raise devils in every other Arm but home, some missionaries had worn down the council, struck some deals to get a church built right back behind the meadhall. Craziness."

"Something tells me the Noreast denomination is a little different from what they practice in Diadem," said Zosia.

"Not as much as you'd think! But yeah, they hadn't gone all the way over, still kept a lot of the old ways... which was just confusing 'cause Da hated all that shit, so he'd be lecturing me on how I was a disgrace to the clan at the same time he'd be running the clan down for allowing the conversions. And I..." Was high as balls constantly. "... wasn't quite myself, 'cause I was trying to play it straight as a Horned Wolf when there was some debate over what that even meant anymore, so when shit went down and I had to make a choice, I fucked it all up. Bad. Like, the worst."

"The Mighty Maroto made a mistake?" Zosia dug around under the divan and retrieved another of Diggelby's bottles. "I don't believe it."

"This was epic even as far as my fuckups go. We were warring with another clan, some devil-worshipping nutters called the Jackal People who guard the Noreast Gate. Scary bastards, pale as snow and twice as cold. They'd been stealing some of our people, throwing them through."

"Damn! They tried that shit on the Horned Wolves?"

"Not more than the once." Maroto grinned. "We brought it down on them, hard. Sullen there was his dad's knife-bearer. Couldn't have been more than six or seven. It got bloody, as war does, and we won, as we usually did. But Sullen's dad got killed, and Da took one square across the back, the kind that kills slow-the Jackal People grease their swords with this pepper oil, so it's even worse than it sounds. Just wrecked his arse."

"Damn. Takes a special kind of asshole to poison up before a battle."

"Yeah. I wanted to carry Da back, see if we could mend him, but Horned Wolves... It ain't done. So we left him, and when my nephew wouldn't leave his granddad's side, we left him, too. Left them to the ghost bears and snow lions and any of the Jackals who fled that might come back and find them."

"Cold. That doesn't sound like your people," said Zosia. "Doesn't sound like you, anyway."

"Horned Wolves are fucking savages," said Maroto bitterly. "Crowned Eagle People, Walrus Folk, Snow Lion Tribe, Orcas, and a hundred other clans are all decent, and I don't have to tell you that the free cities of the Noreast Arm are the most civilized on the Star. I mean, West Mastodon's as stunning a metropolis as any in the Isles, and the poet-philosophers of Reh give the Raniputri a run for their hemlock... But the Horned Wolves are just as barbaric as the Troll Lions or Jackal People, only difference is they gave up on human sacrifice. Last week, sure, but they did away with it."

"Wait, your old man and the kid were sacrifices?"

"They wouldn't call it that, but yeah, that's about the shape of it. No such thing as a crippled Horned Wolf, or an old one-you can't run with the pack, you get left behind it. It's fucking stupid. And I was wigging out, big-time, Da screaming his jaw off from the pepper in his spine, Sullen just staring up at me with his witchy cat eyes, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't have any fucking idea. But then my sister said good-bye to her son and our father, going back with the rest of our people, and I told myself if she could walk away from her own child and the dad who praised her every day of her life, I ought to do the same to a nephew I barely knew and the old man who'd never wasted a breath whistling he could use on running me down. I left them, Zosia, left them to die."