The Cold Commands (25 page)

“Because Prophet knows,” Jhiral went on with a long-suffering sigh, “his good lady wife’s been writing to every worthy at court he ever shared a bribe with, trying to get his sentence commuted. We’re all up to
our ears in tearstained parchment. I imagine you’re on the list as well, somewhere.”

She was not. Perhaps her own habitual standoffishness had been noted.
Doesn’t pay to get attached to humans
, her father told her bitterly, drunkenly, one night a few months after her mother died,
they only fucking die on you
. Or perhaps it was her black skin and her eyes and her volcanic origins.

Or maybe you missed the letter, Archidi. Maybe you were fucked up on krinzanz or brooding out at An-Monal or hiding in the desert
.

“I was not aware of Bentan Sanagh’s conviction, my lord,” she said evenly.

“No?” Jhiral stared at her, she thought, almost resentfully. “No?”

“No, my lord.”

Shrieking.
Shrieking
. Abruptly, the Emperor of All Lands rolled his eyes.

“Oh, just
cut his fucking throat
,” he snapped.

The executioners froze. Exchanged glances. One of Sanagh’s arms flailed almost free.

“My lord … ?” ventured one of the braver men.

“You heard me. Stop wasting my time trying to get him pinned and floated. Just slit his throat, I’ll witness it and we can all go and do something less … noisy.”

More glances. Helpless shrugs. Sanagh had frozen as well, fallen silent against the backdrop of his fellow convicts’ screams. It was hard to tell what expression his features held.

“Well? Get on with it!”

“Yes, my lord!” The sergeant executioner snapped to attention. He cleared his mercy blade, came forward and knelt at Sanagh’s head while the others held arms and legs down to the board. Archeth caught one last glance of the blood-streaked face, the unreadable eyes, and then the sergeant’s solid arm blocked her view. She never saw the blade slice through Sanagh’s flesh. But a gout of blood leapt out across the gray wood, and it splattered on the copper-veined marble almost at her feet.

Jhiral looked around at the assembled company and nodded.

“Good. Well done.” Out across the water, the shrieking went on, bouncing crazily off the sculpted marble walls, filling the air, seeking the
ears like swarms of stinging insects. Jhiral still had to pitch his voice above it. “That’s it, then—we can all get out of here. Thank you, everybody, you are dismissed. Khernshal, have somebody clean up this mess, would you.”

The named courtier bowed gravely. Jhiral was already turning away. “Well, then, Archeth. Let’s go and have a look at this Helmsman of yours, shall we?”

“Yes, my lord. Thank you.”

“Oh, don’t mention it,” said the Emperor of All Lands sourly. “The pleasure is entirely mine.”

The shrieking followed them out.

ON ARCHETH’S INSTRUCTIONS, THEY’D PUT ANASHARAL IN THE QUEEN
Consort Gardens. It was an extension to the upper levels of the palace that hadn’t seen much use since Akal’s beloved third wife died in childbirth eleven years ago—a quiet, largely forgotten space, dusty colonnades and wind-rattled palms, here and there a haunting white-stone statue in the Salak style. The interior sections felt shadowed and secret, like long-abandoned ruins, scarcely part of any built architecture at all. The paths through the foliage were unswept, littered with fallen leaves, shaded into patchwork gloom by the spread of the largest trees overhead. A good place for meetings you didn’t want noticed. No one came here if they could help it—some said the veiled ghost of the queen consort could still be seen on certain nights, prowling the gardens with her stillborn child gauze-wrapped and bloody in her arms.

But at the far side of all this, the gardens opened out onto an area of sunstruck white-stone paving, and balustrades festooned with pink-flowering creeper. There were broad granite benches, more statues, and a long balcony view. From here, you could look out westward across the city and the blaze of sun on broad waters at the estuary mouth.

The Helmsman had been placed on a central bench under the balustrade of the middle balcony. A squad of Throne Eternal stood uncertainly at guard beside it. They stiffened up as soon as they saw who was coming. Their commander came forward.

“My lord, I—”

“Relax, Rakan, it’s only us. No need to stand on ceremony.”

“Yes, my lord.” Noyal Rakan, wound overly tight these days, it seemed to Archeth, wearing his recent promotion to his brother’s rank like a helm and uniform cut a little too large. She felt sporadically sorry for the kid. He wasn’t long out of his teens; his grief was still fresh and boyish. But he’d served in the Emperor’s personal guard for the last seven years, and regimental custom for the Throne Eternal was clear, running a tight line back to horse-tribe family tradition.

“So this is our new metal friend, hmm?” Jhiral walked a circle around the Helmsman, looked it over with sidelong curiosity. “Doesn’t
look
like much, I have to say.”

“Do not despise the beggar, grizzled and crippled at the corner,”
Anasharal quoted tartly.
“For who can tell what households or kingdoms he may once have called his own. Life is a long dream whose end we cannot see, and he is perhaps but a premonition, a lucky warning you may yet take.”

“Oh, it knows scripture, too.” An imperial shrug. “But then they all seem to, don’t they? Well, Helmsman—I’m told you have a warning for me?”

“It isn’t for you personally, Jhiral Khimran. It is for your people.”

A long silence. Rakan and the other Throne Eternal looked elaborately elsewhere. Archeth clamped down on a creeping grin.

“Then I’ll be sure and pass it along,” said Jhiral with an abrupt edge in his voice. “Now perhaps you’d care to give me the specifics?”

“And
warning’s
really not quite the word either. You’d be better to see it as a tactical opportunity. The chance to get in ahead of your opposition.”

“Are you talking about the League?”

“No, I am not. I’m talking about something that’s going to make your border disputes with the League look like the pathetic schoolyard squabbles they always were. I’m talking about a darkness out of legend, a storm in the making, a long-buried nightmare brought to waking. I am talking about the end of your Empire, Jhiral Khimran.

“So you’d better sit down and listen to me.”

ownstairs in the bar, he bought the two crewmen another drink and then told them to head back to the ship. There would be no heavy lifting. Neither of them looked too unhappy about it. They drained their glasses, wiped their mouths, and slipped away with laconic sailor nods. Ringil let his own drink stand, leaned an elbow on the bar, and tried to get the room to stop its sporadic blurring in and out of focus around him. For a while, he watched the well-fed diners and tried to work up a modicum of dislike for them, but his heart was not in it. Mostly, he just wanted to lie down and sleep.

Yeah, well. Arse in the saddle then, Gil
.

He propped himself up off the bar—it seemed harder to do than you’d expect for so simple a motion—paid for the drinks, and navigated his way to the door. Got himself out into the street, stood in the fitful torchlight for a while. Across the way on the temple façade, Hoiran
grinned at him toothily. Ringil peeled him a sour return sneer, breathed in hard, and shook his head like a wet dog shedding water. The street tipped and teetered downward in response, inviting a fall. Ringil kept his balance with an effort, waited until everything settled again, and then started down the sloping cobbles, one jolting, jelly-legged pace at a time.

Get to the harbor. Get aboard the
Marsh Queen’s Favor
.

By now, Eril would have been back to the tavern they were lodged at, would have seen to the selling of the horses, for whatever price could be had at such short notice and time of night. And by the time the sun came up and they were missed at the Dappled Gate,
Marsh Queen’s Favor
would be standing well out to sea, beyond pursuit and the need for any more fugitive planning.

A cabin, a bunk, departure at dawn while he slept.

It was like a beacon, pulling at him.

“Ringil
Eskiath
!”

He lurched around. Realized too late the trap the name implied.

Stupid, stupid
, stupid
fucking …

“Well, well, well.” Venj the axman, there on the corner of a cross-street alley, teeth bared in a savage grin. Bulky figures at his back, half a dozen or more. “Thought that was a dodgy fucking Yhelteth accent, if ever I heard one. Thought I knew the face from somewhere.”

The war, the war, the fucking war
. Was he ever going to run out of people who knew his face from some blood-soaked skirmish or other?

“Look,” he fumbled.

“Look nothing.” Venj spat on the ground. “I got family in Trelayne still, I hear the stories. Ringil Eskiath turned black mage, turned on his own family. Price on his head, for loosing slaves and killing merchants. And now there’s some northern swordsman sorcerer down here raiding slave caravans. Doesn’t take a lot of brain to put that together.”

“Lucky for you then,” Ringil said faintly.

He thought it got a couple of guffaws from the men at Venj’s back. Didn’t think it would help much, come the crunch. He held himself upright, tried to look like some kind of credible threat.

“You sure you want to do this, skirmish ranger?”

Sudden flinch in the axman’s eyes. “That was a long time ago.”

“Wasn’t it just. I can let this go, Venj, and so can you. Just walk away.”

“Walk away.” The axman’s tone was light, mock-reasonable, as if he were seriously considering the idea. Ringil felt something plummet in his guts at the sound. “Yeah, we could do that, couldn’t we, boys? Just walk away—from a
twenty-five-thousand florin reward
. Yeah, why not?”

“It’s fifteen.”

Venj grinned. “Either fucking way, it’ll do us.”

Growl of approval at his back like surf. No way out, then. Ringil flexed his right hand at his side. Reckoned angles, but groggily—hopelessly numb. Recall of the fight at Snarl’s encampment only that morning, now faded like some impossible dream of speed and power, some old soldier’s tale of a youth and glory that never was. He’d have to get the Ravensfriend drawn; the dragon dagger wouldn’t cut it against men like these. Not this many, not this type. But they were in so fucking
close …

Venj watched it all going through his head and nodded.

“So, you going to come quietly, or do we have to hamstring and drag you?”

Fuck that. Make them kill you
.

But he knew they wouldn’t have to. Not in his current state, not with these numbers. And with the promise of a reward that high, Venj’s men would take whatever risks and gashes they needed to bring him down alive. They’d bracket him, they’d crowd him, and sooner or later—

He went for the Ravensfriend.

Fevered flash grab—as fast as he could make his body do it.

Knew instantly he’d fucked it up.

It was there in the fumbled grip he got on the pommel, the jagged, grudging tug as he tried to clear the blade. Weary—inelegant—the motions of a man who did not
want
to fight. Venj must have seen it all, spotted the move even as it bloomed. He leapt in with a yell, grabbing for Ringil’s sword-arm before it could swing down. Ringil twisted awkwardly aside, lashed out with a boot and felt it connect. The axman yelped and went over, sprawling and tangled. He lay in a cursing heap on the cobbles as his men rushed in. Their weapons glinted in the gloom.

Ringil got the Ravensfriend around in a soggy arc, managed to block the first opposing blade of the night. Chime of steel, but he staggered from the impact. Turned it into a backward lurch, tried for some fighting space. No fucking chance—they pressed in on him like excited dogs.
He swept his blade low, trying to scare them back, but they were a hard-bitten crew and they just grinned, and skipped the feint, and surged back in. Ringil parried as best he could. Behind the mob, Venj was back on his feet, ax drawn, bawling encouragement.

Something steel got through, he never saw what or how—the flat of it clouted him across the left knee with numbing force. His leg buckled, he could not brace it up. The Ravensfriend wavered. He saw a face full of scars, leering. Hands grappled and grasped, someone got to his wrist and bore it up; someone else ducked in and punched him hard and fast—once! twice!—under the chest. He might have ridden the first one out, but the second dropped him to his knees like a slingshot buck. He swayed there a moment, had time to notice he’d lost the Ravensfriend, and then he keeled over on his side, breath creaking in his starved lungs. Someone kicked him in the head for good measure; someone else laughed and spat on the cobbles near his face. He heard Venj’s voice again, distantly, berating them about something or other.

Do I look like a fucking slave to you?

No, that wasn’t Venj. It was hollow and toneless, and it seemed to come out of the air right beside Ringil’s ear. He twisted his head up. Saw nothing. But he thought the others had heard it, too, because the excited surf of their voices rolled suddenly back into quiet.

“The fuck … ?” said someone.

Do I look like a fucking slave to you?

Something moved in the gloom of the nearest side alley. Ringil, still struggling to breathe, could not get enough of an angle to see clearly.

“Oi!” Venj trod forward. Ringil got a worm’s-eye view of his boots. “This ain’t your fucking business, chum, so put that blade up, and clear off while you still can.”

Do I look like a fucking slave to y—

“Stop fucking saying that!”

Better run
, said another voice, from the other side of the street. Ringil felt a chill smoking off him as he heard the words, though in his fuddled state he could not work out why.
Better run
.

“Right, that’s it,” said Venj grimly. “You were fucking warned.”