Rusted Heroes Read online

  Anoushka put a hand on Russell’s. His furrowed brow smoothed at once at the touch. “Skivvit’s at Burned Mountain. And this asshole”—she nodded at Lyle’s dossier—“is only making the front harder to hold.”

  The moment Russell had swiveled his gaze back onto Ruprecht, his lined face crumpled anew. “Fine. But know it’s not for ye, Fancy Pants. It’s so I can work with these two again.”

  Ruprecht stood. “Glad to hear it,” he said with a sigh. “Drink up, sign the contract, and meet me out at the caravan when you’re ready.” Ruprecht led Markus through the stumbling, laughing circus workers to exit, slapping aside the canvas flap.

  Russell studied the contract before him. He didn’t release his hold on the stein’s carved bone handle for the pen Ruprecht had left. “I don’t like this, lasses. Feels backward.”

  “Time didn’t stop when we quit,” Kylie-Nae said. “They want us to fight, but they also want a story out of it this time.”

  “Who even reads the shite that man prints?”

  “Everybody, apparently,” Anoushka said, recalling the crowded Associated Bards waiting room.

  “Can’t say it’s not temptin’,” Russell said. He looked to the rope-ringed mat, empty now save the faded bloodstains worked into the canvas. Across the way, the halflings were sitting staring into small glasses of beer, their smeared grease paint exaggerating their frowns. “I don’t even get any time under the big top,” Russell said. “I entertain the entertainment.”

  “I tried talking to Mister Khalenjhaard,” Kylie-Nae said. “But faux-wrestling, he says, is passé.”

  “He’s a passé.” Russell grunted. “Soon as I finish this mug here, I’m gonna go tell him I quit. Got better shite to be doin’.”

  Anoushka said, “Take your time, read the contract over again. I’m gonna go get some air.” She finished her beer and stood.

  Passing behind Russell, she put a hand on his shoulder. He was quick to lay his own atop hers and hold it there, pinning her to his shoulder, close, for a breath. He looked up at her. His face hadn’t changed much, but something in his eyes had. Wisdom. Hurt. Some of both. Divorce could do that. He thanked her with that look; a desperate, silent thing. He’d missed his old friends, she realized, perhaps even more than she did.

  * * *

  Outside, the spectacle seekers were cranking up their jalopies and untying horses. Anoushka lost her balance, standing still, trying to light her pipe. To avoid tumbling over, she had to catch her balance on the tent’s guy lines. One beer. She was a lightweight again. She had quit drinking the day the squad disbanded; without them, alcohol worked only to make her sad.

  After getting her pipe lit, she went for a stroll along the high, striped wall of the big top to try to work the alcohol out of her blood. With her scally cap pulled low, she walked as if she had a direction—all the while watching from the corners of her eyes, fascinated by the behind-the-scenes world of the circus. She came upon a mound of cages stacked as high as a house. Each held a pacing creature. Lizards big as automobiles. A bird with two heads. A multimuzzled hydra stuffed into a glass tank of cloudy water—a crowd of slitted eyes pressed the thick pane, tracking her hungrily. At the last cage in the line, she stopped.

  A troll, shackled at neck, wrist, waist, and ankle. Some group had taken it upon themselves, she’d read in the Trib, to free the Flesh Hammers from the orcs. Admirable, sure, but in their natural environment, free from corrals, the trolls ended up doing more harm than good. Simply what came natural to them. And now, perhaps they weren’t being whipped or branded anymore, but they found themselves in cages again.

  The troll stared down through its bars at Anoushka, blinking slow, skinnier than any she’d seen. Its cock had been cut away, its tusks shaved to round, harmless stubs. Despite nearly losing her life to one—and that anxiety rebuilt when she stared at it through the wall of iron bars—she felt nothing but sadness for it. It couldn’t behave in the wild since the towns were growing, so here it was. A creature that didn’t fit the times. Not extinct but not welcome either, left floating between.

  It looked away first.

  Only then did Anoushka step along.

  Kept distant, lest the smell of blood rile the other animals, was the butcher’s workstation. A man in a soaked apron dragged a goat by its lead to a tree trunk chopping block. It seemed to understand what was coming and fought the rope. The man, unbothered, picked the goat up by its hind legs, hung it upside down by a branch, and made two quick cuts—across its throat and down its belly. The goat thrashed and twisted, swinging by the ankle noose. The butcher waited until the foam of red bubbles on the goat’s ventilated throat—its final breath—stopped building.

  “Used to it on ice at the market, not quite goaty-looking still?” the butcher asked Anoushka and cackled. Into a bucket at his feet, he deposited a pink tangle of innards with a wet slap.

  Anoushka was about to continue her tour when the goat kicked out, clipping the butcher on the chin with a hoof. Springing back, holding his face with one hand, he redrew his knife with the other.

  Upside down, the goat’s head twisted on its cut neck. It caught Anoushka with its strange horizontal pupils. The tongue twitched over its teeth, getting their feel. The lips peeled back and puckered, spastic: I’ve seen you now.

  “Are you doing this?” the butcher shouted at Anoushka—no, at someone behind her. At the edge of the butcher tent’s torchlight, a hunched figure. Face hidden by a threadbare mask, robes hanging in frays and snarls, greasy center-parted hair hanging in thin, silver strands.

  Anoushka’s hand flew to her hip—where she used to have her ’lock.

  “Step to your left, if you would,” the person said. A woman’s worn voice.

  They threw out a clawlike hand with several inches of filthy fingernails. Something silent and invisible transpired; the goat went slack again, eyes glassing a second time.

  The butcher turned with his knife. “Think that was funny, do you, inclined?”

  “I didn’t do it,” the woman said. “I stopped it. And I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a thank-you.”

  “Thank you? I was thinking I’d chib you.”

  The woman leveled a glare at him. The butcher screamed, dropping his knife. The blade, where it’d fallen on the tree trunk, was steaming red hot. Arms wheeling, he fled. And as much as she wanted to run right along with him, Anoushka was frozen, struck sober.

  The woman continued to observe the swinging dead goat for a moment, as if daring it to reanimate. Over her half mask, her brown eyes were circled in bruise-colored wrinkles. “You must be the snowie Rupie mentioned.” Cough. “Sorry if that’s presumptuous, but we don’t get many of your sort out here. Crescentcliff’s humidity disagrees with your kind, doesn’t it?”

  Anoushka was too dumbstruck to think. She held a hand to her chest.

  “Lodielle Springborn,” the woman said. “Lodi. Magickally inclined, as if that demonstration wasn’t sufficient to make it clear.”

  Anoushka swallowed. “Well, thank you, Lodi, for—”

  “Oh, he’s not gone.” Lodi drew down her half mask. Her creases seemed concentrated to the laugh lines. “But it’s a good sign; if we’re close enough that he can do that, he’s close enough to be found. Unless he’s using repeaters—then he could be anywhere. But fingers crossed, right?” She smiled, long yellow teeth hugged by black gums.

  The gutted goat turned on the rope in the breeze.

  Anoushka’s scalp tingled.

  “Old, nasty trick,” Lodi said, following Anoushka’s gaze. “Carcass hijacking. Or remote possession, depending on the tome. But a shiny half-jula goes to the pretty girl if she can guess if it’s an outlawed magick.”

  “It is?”

  “Very good. Take an IOU?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Outstanding,” Lodi said. “Where’s your boss?”

  “Boss?” Anoushka was still overwhelmed.

  “Right, I forget you contractors aren’t keen on th
at term. Your client, then.” From somewhere within the folds of her deteriorating robes, a walking stick emerged. “Shit-fire,” she murmured upon trying a step.

  “You okay?”

  Cough, cuh-cuh-cough. “Right as rain. Where’d you say Rupie was, sweetness?” Cough.

  “His caravan.”

  “You’ve signed, I take it? How about the others?”

  Anoushka took it slow to allow Lodi to keep up: “Two of four. At least I think our head pedaler will sign.”

  “Good.” Lodi focused on the ground as she picked through the tall grass aided by her a pale twist of driftwood for a cane. “And the protagonist?”

  “Breakshale.”

  Lodi stopped. “Um, once more, if you would? This ear’s sadly merely for symmetry.”

  “Our protagonist is in Breakshale Penitentiary.”

  Seeing her in better light as they neared the big top’s string of torches leading to the guest entrance, Anoushka saw the wizardess’s skin was cracked and mottled in places, with a colony of scabs dabbed about her mouth and chin. Maybe not very old, after all, just ruined. “Rupie didn’t say shit about going there.”

  “I thought he would’ve mentioned it.”

  “Weasel must’ve forgotten that small detail.” Cough. Scoff.

  “If it’s any solace, I think he’s a prick too.”

  Lodi finally stopped glaring at Anoushka as if she were trying to make her head fly off by thought. “I should really start listening to people when they speak. What was your name again?”

  “Anoushka.”

  “I know, darling. I’m fucking with you.”

  As they approached the circus workers’ tent to meet Kylie-Nae and Russell, Anoushka stopped short, seeing they were already outside talking to the circus ringleader in his tailed bloodred coat. She didn’t want to intrude, especially since the dwarf ringleader, hands on hips, was shaking his head while both Russell and Kylie-Nae wore apologetic looks.

  Thinking it’d be best not to interfere, Anoushka guided Lodi toward Ruprecht’s caravan. She was about to knock when the wizardess pulled Anoushka aside and rapped her cane against the wizardess painted onto the caravan’s side, the Associated Bards’ mascot. “Recognize anyone?”

  Anoushka tried to seem unsurprised, as if it were obvious the Lodi in the portrait and the Lodi before her were of course the same person. Of course.

  “Gods, look at that hair,” Lodi said. “So red.”

  The rear door of the caravan banged wide. Ruprecht stumbled out onto the grass, brandishing a ball-peen hammer. “If you’re trying to steal one of my wheels, godsdammit—” Seeing who it was, he lowered his tiny weapon. “Ladies. Hello.”

  “Two bits of bad news,” Lodi said. “First: Crescentcliff’s dry of mothdream. Second: your mark’s onto us.”

  “What did you two do?” Ruprecht said. “He’s not supposed to know we’re coming.”

  Lodi said, “Seems someone’s got loose lips.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Anoushka said. “I know how it works.”

  “Well, he knows. No undoing that now,” Ruprecht said. “And as for the mothdream, we’ll find a dealer in Yarnigrad.”

  “Are drugs really a priority?” Anoushka said.

  “They are,” Lodi said, “if we want your wizardess to do her research.”

  It appeared Ruprecht had more to say but cut himself off, leaning to look past Anoushka and Lodi. “Mister Ironbeird, Miss Browne! It’s good of you to join us!”

  Stepping into the caravan’s lantern light, Russell and Kylie-Nae lugged bulging knapsacks. Several rifle barrels stood out of Kylie-Nae’s, high above her head. Russell had on his trademark knickerbockers, suspenders, tank top, and sweat-stained bowler. Just like the Russ Anoushka remembered. In his uniform, as it were.

  “Got a contract for me, Mister Ironbeird?” Ruprecht said, returning to the top step of his caravan—above everyone, the frumpy patriarch.

  “Aye.” Russell offered the page to the bard. “I signed.”

  Anoushka mouthed, Thank you, to Kylie-Nae.

  No problem, her silent reply.

  Glancing it over, Ruprecht thrust the contract to Markus, inside. Anoushka caught a peek of the young man when he took the page—his left nostril was rimmed with red crust, eyes puffy and bloodshot.

  Ruprecht, noticing she’d seen, edged over in the caravan doorway to block her view. “All right,” he announced, “we’ll meet at the inn in Crescentcliff—corner of Seventh and Greene. I have horses waiting at the stables there, an investment from my own pocket, mind, so treat them well. Next stop: Breakshale Penitentiary.”

  Ghosts of War

  The horses Ruprecht had bought turned out to be four long-in-the-tooth donkeys. One succumbed a mile out from Crescentcliff’s walls, dumping Anoushka into the mud. Russell and Kylie-Nae offered to free up a donkey for their captain and walk, but Anoushka invited herself into Ruprecht’s caravan instead. She wanted to clear a few things up. Namely, the donkeys weren’t the only frustration. The bard had also failed to inspect their provisions when getting them from the grocer. Having bet on this, the shopkeep had decided to pull a fast one; their sixty tins of creamed ardimires each contained a pungent loose gravy, and their bread had been hollowed by bugs.

  “Well, this venture’s off to one fuck of a start,” Anoushka said, sparking a match while they bumped and thumped along.

  Through the instruments swaying between them, Ruprecht studied her a moment, about to say something hurtful in return, Anoushka knew. Receiving a person’s ire—when she’d helped hone it, in particular—always gave her something of a thrill.

  “When I sent Outstanding Valor to the printers,” he said, “I had second thoughts. I do with every work; that panic-stricken moment when you’re positive you misspelled something or screwed up some important detail. And while I was confident in my grammar, I was still afraid I hadn’t lassoed your individual essence, your voice and demeanor, given we had never spoken in person. Now, though, I am greatly at ease.”

  “Oh?” she said hotly. “And why’s that?”

  “Do you like stories?”

  “What?”

  “Do you like stories, Miss Demaine?”

  “Sure.”

  “How about The Prince and the Armory?”

  “What’s this gotta do with anything?”

  “I will make my point shortly. Just tell me, do you know it—the story?”

  “Yeah. I know it.”

  “So tell me it,” Ruprecht said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I like to hear them as well as write them. Even if I’ve heard them before.”

  Anoushka sighed. “All right, well . . . something about some skinny kid who gets told by his old man to go pick a weapon off the rack. Broadsword’s too long, and he shortens three fingers. Battle-ax’s too heavy, and he whiffs every swing at the practice dummy. Twerp tries the pole arm since it’s the last thing he hasn’t nearly killed himself with yet, downs a bunch of bad guys, the end, happy day.”

  “Something like that, yes, but do you know the story’s moral? See, a moral is a story’s—”

  “I know what a moral is.”

  “So what’s the moral of The Prince and the Armory?”

  “Pole arms are for panty-waist royals who have no business on the battlefield?”

  “Cute, but no. The weapon suits the warrior, and the warrior suits the weapon. You don’t just work well together; you match each other. Something intrinsic goes on. And you’re fortunate to’ve found yours, you and the tank. The minute anything threatens to gain a peek of what softness may be inside your shell, you fire off with everything you have.”

  Anoushka shrugged and rolled aside the caravan’s side window to allow her smoke out—even though she enjoyed seeing Ruprecht’s eyes start to water.

  “Even right then.”

  She was trying to not snap her pipe’s clay mouthpiece off in her teeth. “You can’t deny you fucked up with the horses and food. Two
things it might be good to not screw up.”

  “Not that. You’re hard to even spend time with. You come into my office and all but threaten to tear my livelihood out from under me through litigation, even before you’re through shaking my hand. After that, you—”

  “Stop.” She pointed her pipe’s mouthpiece at him—with its new teeth dents. “I know what you’re doing.”

  He spread inky hands; the innocent. “What? What am I doing?”

  “You’re trying to peeve me up.” She nodded at the parchment on the fold-up desk, half filled with his tiny, tight script. “You want a motivation? I told you: the reason I’m doing this is that I wanna work with my old squad mates again. Nothing more. There’s no tragedy in my past; my parents weren’t murdered by Skivvit—they run a bakery in Raleen; neither murdered whatsoever. I’m not some idiot looking for any excuse to sing ‘Ra-Ra-Rammelstaad.’ My town was never pillaged, my people never enslaved, no lover of mine ever slain before my very eyes. Shit, all of my ex-boyfriends have gotten married and fat—a run up some tall stairs is sooner than an orc to do them in. I’m a real person, boring as they come. I wanna do what I do because I’m good at it, and I miss it and my friends.” Halfway through this litany, Anoushka realized she was probably proving his point.

  Ruprecht, after nodding a couple of times, calm, picked up his pen again. “Forgive me. But shall I begin our interview, in earnest? No tricks this time.”

  “All right.” Nothing else to pass the time, and they still had quite the trek ahead of them.

  “Full name, age, and place of birth.”

  “Magnyldia Anoushka Demaine. I’ll be forty-two next Springbloom. I was born in Raleen, East Ward.”

  “East Ward. The low-income district, yes?”

  “Yes, the low-income district.” Asshole.

  “Education?”

  “I attended Josephine Calloway’s School for Girls in New Delta City.”

  “Expensive . . . for East Ward bakers.”

  “My parents were sound budgeters.”

  “Speak with them much?”

  “My parents? Not really.”