Thieves' War Page 4

  "I didn't need to know that," I said.

  "No one needed to know that," Rek agreed.

  Lux chuckled

  “Okay, but won’t they kill us if we go back?” I asked. “Or at least punish us for desertion?”

  Cord scoffed. “For losing a battle? They’re a war city. Fighting is the thing that matters.”

  “Okay, but what about the thing behind us?” I asked.

  “We’ll take the long way around. Hopefully throw it off our trail,” Cord said.

  “And if not?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Vignon has high walls. And a goddess. We hope they’re enough.”

  “That’s a lot of hope,” I said.

  “It’s what I do best,” he said, a small smirk on his lips.

  The carriage stomped on.

  Contrary to popular belief, there isn't a lot to say about journeys. They're long, dirty, sometimes wet, and everyone is a bit grumpy. You're hungry most of the time, tired the others, and much of the landscape is the same. Trees here, rocks there. Rocks here, trees there. Grass. Sometimes dirt. Sometimes the sun-bleached skeleton of something that met an unfortunate end at the hands of something larger and meaner than itself. Unless you're a small stout person with an urgent return on a piece of jewelry, and you’ve been denied more convenient transportation, there's never really any reason to walk somewhere far away. There's certainly no reason to menace the countryside by visiting small villages while bristling with weapons. For most people, anyway.

  "So, where were you?" I asked Cord, once the slipweed kicked in and the knots in my shoulders loosened up. He always had slipweed. Some things never changed.

  He shrugged. "Dead. Then I wasn't. It's not that interesting a story1."

  I gritted my teeth in frustration, but I knew trying to get Cord to do or share something he wasn't ready to would be like trying to uproot an oak barehanded. "Fine," I said. "Tell us a story anyway."

  "And not the fucking horse story," Rek rumbled.

  Cord grinned and rubbed his chin for a moment. "Ah, did I ever tell you guys about Thin Nic and Smashmouth?"

  Rek grunted in surprise, and even Lux murmured something.

  "Not that I recall," I said. "When did this happen?"

  Cord waved a hand, as if pushing away a fog. "Long time ago. Before you all."

  "Oh, is this a Cordling story?" I asked, curiosity piqued.

  "Excuse me, a what?" Cord asked.

  "A Cordling. Before you were Cord. You know, knee-high to a grasshopper," I said.

  "Low blow," he said.

  "You are rather close to the ground," Rek said.

  "Needs a stool to get over the curb," Lux said.

  "You're all just jealous you can't be proportionate," Cord said.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Well, when you stop growing up, something has to grow out," he said.

  "Gret's balls," I said. "Just tell the damn story."

  "Okay, this was back, what, twenty years ago? They'd just thrown me into Blackgate. The first time," he said.

  "What did you do?" Rek asked.

  "It's complicated. You know how it is. Legalese, lawyers, prima facie, subpoenas..." and he snickered as he said the word.

  "You fucked someone you weren't supposed to fuck, didn't you?" I asked.

  "I'll tell you what I told the prosecutor. I was definitely stabbing her, but not with a knife," he said.

  "Is there a story here, or are we just going to get a history lesson from your cock?" I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow. "No patience. Look, you have to set up some backstory before you just wade into stuff. I mean, you wouldn't eat noodles without cooking them first, right?"

  "I don't think Nenn eats noodles that often," Rek said. "If you know what I mean."

  "Don't you start," I said.

  Rek raised his hands in defeat and gestured for Cord to go on.

  "Where was I?" Cord said. He lit his pipe and puffed a couple times. "Ah, yeah. Anyway, I was in Blackgate. My bunkmate was this guy named Thin Nic."

  "Why'd you call him that?" Rek asked.

  "Because he was thin," Cord said.

  "I thought prison nicknames were supposed to be like metaphors," Rek said.

  Cord shrugged. "We're not all poets. Anyway, Thin Nic was Gentian. Liked his violence, his prison wine, and his knives. Had about thirty of them, hidden all over the prison. That guy collected knives like Rek collects horse cock."

  "Your face is a horse cock," Rek muttered.

  I burst out laughing. Cord glared at me until I caught my breath. I bit my lip, forcing a straight face and nodded for him to go on.

  "Hmph. Anyway, I liked Nic. He was a good guy. Always had your back, always ready with the knives. Now, there was another guy we didn't like so much. We just called him Smashmouth." He glared at Rek. "Because that's what he did. He was easily over seven feet and liked to hit people til their mouths were on crooked.

  "So, we're in the yard, Nic drinking, me chewing a bit of weed that had made it in, when Smashmouth walks up. We know he's gonna shake us down. He's got this look on his fat face that says he's had a bad day, and now we're gonna, too. Nic looks up at him, well into his cups and sneers.

  "'Piss off, ya oversized bowel,' he says.

  "Well, Smashmouth gets this look on his face. On somebody else, you might think it's amusement. He's gonna laugh. He's not a bad guy. And just to clarify something here—Nic wasn't a pushover. That man could do things with a knife that would make a chiurgeon weep. He even had a saying—as most Gentians do—Ain’t nothin’ you can do with a dull knife a limp cock couldn’t accomplish. Sure, there's a certain irony in a man who coins that sort of phrase being three sheets any day of the week, but Gentians aren't known for their logic.

  "So Smashmouth leans down and gets right in Nic's face.

  "'What'd you say?' he asks.

  "But he asks it in that inflection that's part threat and part big guy trying to catch his breath, like when you catch someone at the butcher ordering ham, but it comes out 'hram'. So Nic spits in his face and whips a blade out. And that's when the brick hits him in the side of the head. He goes sideways, eyes all rolling like a roulette wheel, and hits the dirt. The whole time he's making this narm narm narm sound. Smashmouth doesn't pay any attention. Just picks up the wineskin and walks away."

  Cord's story ended, and he looked at each of us.

  "That's it?" I asked.

  "Well, yeah. Prison sucks."

  "What happened to Nic? What about Smashmouth? Isn't there a moral to this story at least?"

  "Well, it's not a fairy tale, Nenn. But if you gotta know, Smashmouth ended up shitting himself to death about two weeks later. Someone passed him a bad bit of slipweed, and his bowels just turned to jelly. Nic, well as far as I know, Nic spends most of his time naming his toes. And a moral?" he scratched his chin. "Don't bring a knife to a brick fight, I suppose."

  "Well, shit," I said. I turned and looked at Lux. "Got anything better?"

  Her lips curved up in a small smile, and she began.

  It really is quite a long story, and incredibly dark, so here’s the spot where I tell you we just kind of stared for an hour while she told it, and then no one spoke at the end. Me, I was just watching her lips. It’d been a while, and I am only human.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed when she finished. “What the fuck was that?”

  “There are a million worlds. An infinite number of deaths. I have died so. Many. Times. Death permeates these bones. Crawls along my spine, plays in my breath.”

  I turned in my seat and cocked an eyebrow at Cord. I mouthed holy fuck, and he shot me a sly grin. The carriage lurched to a halt, and I peeked between the curtains. A village lay nestled between the hills before us.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Lunchtime,” Lux said.

  My stomach gurgled in joy.

  If first impressions are a thing, when we stepped from the carriage, the one that ran through my head was w
hat the ever-loving fuck. It admittedly wasn’t generous, but I’d learned a long time ago from Cord that gut instincts were as valuable as gold. A village half-hidden in an encroaching copse of trees and surrounded by a small stone wall stood before us, serene. The buildings were small and neat, white stone, the entrance two pillars that split the wall. On the posts were carved symbols I hadn’t seen before—a snake devouring its own tail, and a sword with wings piercing a heart.

  I looked to Cord and Rek, coming to stand beside me, Lux still clambering from the carriage. They each took a turn inspecting the symbols, then casting a critical eye at the quiet streets and the temple at the center. Round and high, it too bore the carved icons, the peak of its dome topped with the hilt of a carved sword protruding from the rotunda. None of us spoke for a minute, remembering Frollo’s town.

  “Of all the places to stop,” Cord said. “Probably not even a bar within miles.”

  “Blarg blarg blarg,” I said.

  “What?” he asked,

  “That’s what you sound like,” I said.

  Rek nodded.

  “Bitchy,” Lux agreed.

  “Good gods. Okay, let’s just go into the nice probably not haunted town and not have a drink and probably the blandest food since Rek tried to make rice and just made gruel2.”

  I started into town, the others in tow.

  “Well, fuckaroo,” Cord muttered, and jogged to catch up.

  The town stood out as unremarkable, boring even. A small part of me appreciated it. After overthrowing kingdoms, pursuit by the undead, and fighting gods, I could use a dose of boring. More importantly, I could go for some chicken. The town was quiet, not a soul on the streets, and the doors we knocked on weren’t answered. Voices came from the center of the village, muffled by the temple doors. If I wanted food, we were going to have to roust an innkeep.

  I stopped at the church; double doors shut tight. On the other side, I heard a voice raised as if in supplication, and laid a hand on the door.

  “Uuuuuugh,” Cord said. “Do we have to?”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “Waiting for my sobriety to depart.”

  I pulled the doors open and stepped in; the others close behind. Rows of pews circled a raised dais in the center. A man in tight leather trousers and a billowing white blouse, his hair long in the back, short in front and feathered, spoke from a podium. I tried to concentrate on his words, but the statue behind him drew my eye. It stood nearly to the roof of the dome, and depicted a horse built from steel rearing up. On its back, a man with hair similar to the priest’s gripped its flanks tightly with his thighs. In his hands he held a wide bow, each of the six strings nocked with an arrow.

  I turned my attention back to the pastor.

  “And so I say to you, continue living on a prayer, for we are halfway there, my brethren.”

  “We’ll make it, I swear3,” the congregation replied.

  “May you walk not alone along streets of dreams,” the priest said.

  “Here I go again on my own,” the congregation finished, and stood to leave, the rustling of clothing echoing in the vast space.

  Almost as one, they turned and noticed us. The churchgoers froze.

  “Fuck,” Rek rumbled, beating me to it.

  “The demon has returned,” the priest said, a look horror on his face. He raised a hand and pointed at Cord. “Ozz, the Iron, to wreak destruction.”

  “What the fuck did you do?” I asked.

  “I visited in aught five? Six? Just for a night, though,” he said.

  “Double fuck,” I said.

  The congregation surged forward, but before any of us could loose, let alone swing a weapon, the surge of bodies had us pinned. They quickly bound Cord and brought him to the podium. Burly men bearing tattoos of the snake and the blade on their forearms forced us into the pews. They placed Cord on the dais, and even at a near distance, I felt him glaring at me.

  “Go into the church, she says. It’ll be fine, she says,” he said.

  I shrugged and raised my eyebrows.

  “Silence!” the priest intoned. “We must exorcise the demon!”

  “I don’t suppose a man could have a last request before all the chanting and the stabbing?” Cord asked.

  “And what is it you require, hellspawn?” the priest asked.

  “Well, if I had one wish, and I understand—no, I do, that this isn’t the most ideal time to ask, but could you maybe, possibly, go fuck yourselves?”

  The priest’s eyebrows raised in alarm. He opened his mouth to reply, but Cord went on.

  “If I had two wishes, the first would of course, be the fucking of yourselves, but the second would be for a pony.”

  “Boo!” Rek said. His minder cuffed him across the ear. Rek noticed no more than an elephant notices a fly. Cord continued.

  “If I had three wishes, the first would be the fucking yourself bit, the second, the pony, and the third, for you all to drop dead of some debilitating disease, like sudden self-awareness. Seriously, have you seen yourselves? Does no one in this town own a mirro—”

  “Enough!” the priest bellowed. “Begin the Rite of Bad Medicine!”

  He raised his arms, along with the congregation. They chanted, in perfect unison.

  Your love, bad medicine

  Bad, bad medicine

  Bad, bad medicine

  Ooh baby, ooh baby

  Bad, bad medicine

  I gotta do it again, wait a minute, wait a minute

  Hold on

  I'm not done

  One more time

  With feeling

  Come on

  Help me out now

  Cord stared at them, mouth open. “What. The. Shit,” he said.

  The priest stopped mid-verse, peered at Cord with one brow raised. “It is clear you are beyond help. I must begin the Rite of Naming Bad Love. Bring me the Axe.”

  One of the congregation split from the group, jogging to a nearby alcove. When he reappeared, it was with a massive double-headed axe. He stepped lightly up the stairs and handed it to the priest.

  “Thank you, brother Winger.”

  The congregant moved away, and the priest raised the axe. I leaned toward Rek and Lux. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  Rek shrugged. Lux tittered. “It’s Cord,” she said.

  “Eh, all right.” I settled into the pew to watch, feeling a bit like a peasant at a hanging. The priests chanted, voices raised in a wailing chorus.

  Shot through the heart

  And you're to blame

  You give love a bad name

  I play my part and you play your game

  You give love a bad name

  You give love, a bad name

  “You sing like you’ve got a donkey cock in your throat,” Cord replied.

  The priest brought the axe down, the keen edge tearing into Cord’s skull and spraying gray matter. A single eyeball rolled across the stage. With a wrench, he tore the weapon free, and stepped back, panting with exertion. Cord’s body collapsed.

  “Well, what now?” I asked.

  The congregants left their posts, deeming us not a threat considering the recent attack. Rek looked around, then gestured to the stage. Cord’s skull had already mended, and with a grunt, he pushed himself up. The priest stood with his back turned, but already the congregation had noticed, horrified gasps escaping thier lips. I left the pew, Rek and Lux close behind. I slipped through the crowd until I was behind the priest. Rek and Lux took the doors. The preacher turned slowly, face to face with a still-bloodied Cord. His eyes widened in horror.

  “Boo,” Cord said.

  The man jumped, and I rammed my knives into his kidneys. He slumped like a sack of wet meat, and I cleaned my blades on his ridiculous shirt. Cord took the podium.

  “Good people of podunkia,” he said, raising his hands.

  “Ahh, the demon speaks!” came the reply from the crowd.

  “Well, fuck,” Cord mutte
red. He tried again. “I am but a humble man, carrying the message of the Heads that Speak. Hear these words:

  And you may ask yourself

  How do I work this?

  And you may ask yourself

  Where is that large carriage?”

  Some of the crowd paused in their assault, stopping to nod along. Cord raised his hands and his voice.

  “And you may tell yourself

  This is not my beautiful house!

  And you may tell yourself

  This is not my beautiful wife!”

  “What does that even mean?” I asked.

  Cord turned to me and shrugged as the first of the congregants turned an inky black, skin splitting, blood gushing like sausage too long on the fire.

  “Holy fuck. Did you do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t… think so?” Cord said.

  I looked over at Lux, whose hands blazed with black light. One by one, the congregants burst and spilled, entrail and offal flooding the room. By the time it was over, a thick cloud of flies had already gathered from the open windows. Rek strode purposefully through the mess and grabbed the statue, the name Bon’Jovan carved into the base. He toppled it with a shove, shoulders straining at the seams of his shirt. It smashed to the floor with a resounding clang, bits and chunks of the beatific face spinning off into dark corners.

  Cord looked around.

  “Welp. That happened,” he said.

  We left the way we came, the village quiet behind us, and me still without food. My stomach growled piteously.

  The Brown Note

  We’d gotten underway again when Cord spoke up.

  “You think we’ll ever visit a town without killing everyone?” He asked.

  “Are there towns not filled with dickheads?” I asked.

  He shrugged. Another long stretch of silence. I couldn’t wait to get out of this carriage. Lux jumped into the lull just as I began to fidget.

  “You didn’t tell your story,” she said.

  I took a breath. Something to take my mind off my stomach. And the mass-murder we’d just committed. The perfect story popped into my head just then, as if placed there by Camor themselves.