Chapter 64
I Shall Call You What I Please
All the smaller monkeys—every grey-furred rock-thrower, every green howler, every fire macaque still alive on the cliff face—they stopped. I saw them stop through the worms in the rock, felt them through the vibrations. They all froze, and then they came down, moving toward the alpha.
The first ones reached it within seconds. They climbed the alpha's body, and it grabbed them. One in each hand. And shoved them into the crack in its stone head.
The monkeys screamed—short, cut-off screams—as their bodies compressed, crumpled, and were absorbed into the wound. The crack sealed, closing over the sacrifice as if it had never been there.
"What the fuck," I said.
More monkeys poured down. Fire macaques and howlers climbed the alpha's back as it reached around, grabbing them and pressing them into its wounds. Each sacrifice closed a gash, mended a cut, sealed the stump of the dead fire head.
Zo's voice came from above. "Fish! They're leaving!"
She was right. The monkeys that weren't sacrificing themselves were retreating up the cliff face.
The alpha was backing away too, its wounds half-healed, the dead fire head now a smooth lump of scar.
It grabbed the last few monkeys in reach, crushed them against its chest where the sword wounds were deepest, and the flesh knit shut.
Then it turned and ran. It moved on all fours with terrible speed, its knuckles cratering the road with each step.
The Dragoon took a few steps toward the fleeing alpha, then his knees gave out.
I stood up from behind the ox carcass. The mountain trail was a slaughterhouse.
Wagons burned or lay shattered across the road—five of them gone entirely, reduced to kindling and ash.
Bodies everywhere. Mercenaries, merchants, passengers.
Some dead. Some dying. Some were crawling toward the wreckage of what had once been their livelihoods.
"Can you walk?" I asked.
"I am not an invalid."
"Good. Then, stay close."
We moved through the road. I kept my body between Wyona and the worst of it, but there was no way to avoid it all. A man lay against a broken wheel with his intestines spilling into the ground, one hand reaching toward us. His mouth moved in a silent plea as he died.
"The losses are significant," Wyona said, stepping over a pool of blood. Her feet left red prints on the stone. "The caravan's fighting capacity has been reduced to perhaps a dozen. The Dragoon is wounded. And the remaining merchants will fight over the unclaimed goods."
She was already thinking about what came next, while people bled out around us. While the fires still burned.
We found the survivors at the front of what remained of the caravan. The Dragoon sat against a rock, a woman wrapping his shoulder with a strip of canvas.
Zo dropped from the cliff, cracking the road under her boots. She was covered head-to-toe in monkey guts, her axe resting across her shoulders. Her cyan hair matted with gore.
"Cliffs are clear," she said, grinning at me with teeth pink from where she'd bitten one of the monkeys. "Miss me?"
"Always."
Jacko stood in front of the survivors with his hands on his hips and his face purple with rage.
"The dead merchants' goods," he said. "Their wagons. Their stock. It belongs to the caravan now. We split it among those who survived."
"Those goods belong to their families," one of the merchants said. A thin man with a bleeding scalp. "You can't just—"
"Their families ain't here!" Jacko stepped forward. "Their families didn't fight. Didn't bleed. We did. We earned the right to what's left."
"You ran," the thin merchant said. "I saw you run when the fire came."
Jacko's hand went to the knife on his belt. "Say that again, you piece of—"
"Enough."
Wyona's voice cut through the argument. She stepped forward, her ruined silk dress hanging from one shoulder, green hair full of ash. She looked like a disaster, but she spoke like a queen.
"You squabble over dead men's trinkets while the beasts regroup above us.
" She looked at Jacko. Then the thin merchant.
Then the Dragoon, who raised his head to meet her gaze.
"The pass is not cleared. The alpha retreated…
it did not die. Every moment spent here counting copper is a moment the monkeys use to prepare their next attack. "
Jacko opened his mouth.
"If you divide the goods now," Wyona continued, and her voice dropped, "you divide the group. Men fight over scraps. Men die over scraps. And when the alpha returns with fresh bodies to sacrifice, there will be no one left to fight it."
"The goods will stay consolidated, pool everything. When we reach Valdris, alive, disputes can be settled by proper arbitration." She turned her back on them and walked away.
Jacko stared at her retreating back, his jaw clenched tightly. But the thin merchant was already nodding, and the other survivors were looking at each other, stupefied from the violence.
Wyona walked back to where I stood.
"Fish… my wagon is destroyed, my guards are dead, and my goods are ash."
"I'm aware."
"Then you understand my position." Those gold eyes locked on mine. "I require protection. Yours will suffice until we reach Valdris."
Suffice. What am I, a second choice at a buffet?
"And in return?" I asked.
"In return, my rabble boy, you shall have the gratitude of the Golden Rose." Her chin lifted. "My choice is the world's choice. You should bear that in mind."
"My name's Fish, not Rabble Boy."
"I shall call you what I please." She turned toward what was left of her wagon, where a single trunk had survived the fire. "Come. There is work to be done before nightfall."
I watched her walk away. Every piece of leverage she'd had was gone, her guards, her goods, her wagon, her anonymity—all of it burned to nothing by a three-headed monkey. And she was still giving orders.
Zo appeared at my shoulder.
"If she calls me rabble girl, I'm breaking her jaw."