The Cold Commands (58 page)

Ringil stared.

“Eg?”

Egar the Dragonbane, dust-plastered and wild-eyed, the sheared-off stump of a fucking
flandrijn pipe
clenched in one fist, blood streaming from a cut on his face …

“Gil?
Ringil?
”

“Take him down!”

Ringil swung to the voice, heard the hard edge in it, the custom of command. There, amid the gathering uniforms, a slim figure clad in the black-and-silver livery of the King’s Reach. As Ringil stared, the man’s voice took a rising cadence.

“Bow
men
!”

There were three of them, two with bow already cranked and quarrel loaded. At this range, they could hardly miss. The Dragonbane crouched and bared his teeth, pipe shard clutched like a knife in his fist. He might cover the ground to one of them before the order fell, but the other …

Ringil raised his hand and traced the
ikinri ’ska
symbol in the air.

No thought in it at all—the impulse rose like instinct, like a diver’s first breath on breaking surface. Like the urge to puke or feed.

“Bow
men
.” He stole the command from the other man’s voice, took it out of the air, copied it, fed it back to them.
“Your weapons are serpents!”

Like a veil falling across the sun, like a sudden chill wind blowing down Keelmakers’ Row. Even the Dragonbane seemed taken aback. The bowmen shrieked and threw their crossbows away. Ringil stalked into the midst of them, like a black wraith, like a shadow detached from the shade in the walls of the temple. His sword was still on his back.

“Spiders,”
he said, painting the air about him with three more swift symbols.
“Dredge crawlers. Corpsemites.”

And suddenly the men-at-arms were berserk, stamping at the ground, brushing maniacally at themselves, tearing at their mail, moaning and yelping in terror. Only the King’s Reach officer was unmoved, staring in disbelief at his men as Ringil moved through them and took up station ten yards away in the middle of the street.

The man’s sword rang clear of its scabbard.

“Sorcerer!”

Ringil unsheathed a grin. “That’s right.”

But beneath the seething, jagged exultation the
ikinri ’ska
set loose in him, he had a moment to feel out the limitations of the power.
Wise men will not fall
, Hjel had told him, somewhere in the confused, dimly remembered whirl of the memories that represented his instruction.
Running dogs and thugs, animals and fools, all these the craft will blind and
cripple. But a man in command of himself and his intellect is another matter
. He read the shrewd intelligence in the face of the man facing him, the cold calculation and the poise of body. This one, he would not be able to put away so simply.

“Want to die?” he called out, in conversational tones.

“I am the King’s Reach,” the man shouted back at him. “I am the hand of Jhiral Khimran and the Burnished Throne, I am the imperial writ made flesh.”

“Ringil Eskiath. Faggot dragonslayer.” Hilarity bubbling up through him with the unleashed power, a black grin plastered across the back of his eyes, and reaching up now, the sword leaping to his hand like a hound rising to take meat its owner dangles—the blade tore sideways through the pliant lips of the scabbard, made a blurred arc around and down off his shoulder, was there at guard in front of him, like steel laughter in the light. “I asked you a question, King’s man.
Do you want to die?
”

They faced each other for frozen moments in the street while the men-at-arms staggered about screaming or lay twitching and mumbling on the cobblestones. Later, some among those watching from windows along Keelmakers’ Row would say that black and blue flames in the forms of men sprang up and burned around the scene, as if passersby from some street not fully of this world, some street
laid over
Keelmakers’ Row, had been drawn to the moment and were gathering there to watch what happened next.

“The Dragonbane is wanted for crimes against the imperium,” shouted the King’s man. “You
will not stand
in the path of imperial justice.”

“I already am. You want the Dragonbane, the only path is through me.”

“Gil!”

He spared a momentary glance back at the call. Egar, striding forward, stooping to scavenge a short-sword from one of the stricken men-at-arms. Limping badly.

Ringil raised a warding hand. “I got this, Eg.”

“Gil, it’s not that simple. The fucking
dwenda
are here, right
here
in—”

“I know all about it, Eg. Let’s kill one thing at a time, shall we?”

Twitch of motion at the corner of his eye. The King’s man, readying himself—he was going to do it anyway. Something in Ringil grinned like a skull at the knowledge.

“Wait!”

Dull clink and skitter of a dropped blade on the cobbles. The King’s man’s eyes flinched sideways at the sound. He looked suddenly puzzled.

And then the Dragonbane was at Ringil’s side, turned in to him, pressing one warm, heavy hand on Gil’s chest and shoulder. Face in close enough to brush stubble on Ringil’s cheek.

“Just hold it, Gil,” he muttered. “There’s another way we can do this.”

Ringil shot him a narrow look. “There is?”

Past the bulk of the Dragonbane’s shoulder, he saw the King’s man twitch again. He raised the point of the Ravensfriend, admonishing.

“You. Don’t even fucking think about it.”

Egar turned about and faced the imperial. He raised his empty hands.

“Enough,” he said, in formally enunciated Tethanne whose fluency made Ringil blink. “I submit. You may bring me before your Emperor.”

The King’s man was still staring hard at Ringil, at the cold, lifted finger of the Ravensfriend. An imperial man-at-arms crawled about on the floor, gibbering and clutching at the cobbles as if he might fall off them and into some waiting void. Weeping and bleating cries soaked through the air from the others. The Ravensfriend gleamed.

“Gil!”

Ringil shrugged and lowered his sword.

“All right,” he said. “This, I’ve got to see.”

“
re you fucking serious?”

Jhiral came fully upright off the ornate sandalwood chair, glaring, as if launched by some catapult mechanism below. The whole silk-tented coracle tilted on the water with the sudden force of his movement. Around him, in the tinted light falling through the silks, people grabbed at tent-pole supports to stop themselves stumbling. The Chamber of Confidences’ floating inner sanctum was not made for violent motion.

Ringil stood like stone. He might have been in a marble-floored ballroom for all the notice he took of the swaying. He was not armed, but you wouldn’t have known it to look in his eyes.

“Do you see me laughing?” he asked quietly.

Archeth stepped forward. “My lord—”

“Shut
up
, Archeth!” The Emperor, not looking at her, stabbing a finger in her direction. “I’ve taken about all the advice I’m going to from
you this year. You—northman—you really expect me to do this? A full and free pardon for your barbarian friend?”

“Yes, I do.”

“A pardon—after the murder of an imperial knight in his own bedchamber and the rape of his wife, the death of three City Guardsmen last night, an imperial man-at-arms just this morning, and now six others I’m told may never be sane again?”

Ringil shifted impatiently. “Yes.”

“Do you really think imperial justice can be bought and sold in this fashion?”

“I think imperial justice will take it up the arse from Your Radiance for a clutched fistful of small change.” Sharp, indrawn breaths from the courtiers in attendance. Ringil ignored them. “I think imperial justice is exactly what you say it is on any given day of the week, and I think the court and wider nobility will get in line behind that like the whipped dogs they are.”

Outraged propriety held the company rigid. Taran Alman, King’s Reach commander, fingered the pommel of his court sword. Noyal Rakan spotted the move and stiffened. The King’s man who’d brought Egar and Ringil in leaned to his commander’s ear and whispered urgently. Alman seemed to shake his head fractionally, disbelieving, but he relinquished the grip on his weapon and folded his arms. His stare stayed hard on Ringil.

Archeth put a weary hand across her eyes.

The silk-tented coracle’s rocking settled back toward stability.

Oddly, the first person in the room to recover seemed to be the Emperor. Jhiral inclined his head gravely, as if told some interesting piece of court intelligence. He lowered himself back into his chair. Fixed Archeth with a look.

“So,” he said, mock-genial. “This is still the man you intend to entrust with
diplomatic relations
on your quest to the north. Is that correct?”

Archeth grimaced and bowed her head. “Yes, my lord.”

Jhiral brooded on the figure in front of him. Black-cloaked, hollow-eyed, and not recently shaven, Ringil stood out in the colored silk surroundings like death in a harem.

“Somehow,” the Emperor said finally, “despite my lady Archeth’s confidence, I don’t imagine diplomacy as your principal skill.”

Ringil smiled thinly. “No, my lord.”

“But according to my inquiries, you’re a very useful hand at butchery. You rallied the Throne Eternal at Beksanara, you turned back the dwenda advance. My witnesses all seem very definite on that point.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And you say you can do the same here? Simply by murdering Pashla Menkarak?”

Ringil shook his head. “I can’t promise that killing the invigilator will drive the dwenda away. They are not a unified race; their incursions into our world seem to lack any overall campaign plan. And four thousand years in exile has rusted their facility in dealing with humans. They are uncertain, working from ancient memories, relearning what they need to know only as they encounter it. But this much I do know—they depend upon human allies at every turn. Destroy those allies, and you cripple whatever plans they may have.”

His Imperial Radiance sat back in the sandalwood chair, rested his chin on one fist, and stared at Ringil some more. “You do know that we’ve already sent several highly skilled assassins into the Citadel after Menkarak. Not one of them came back.”

“So I hear.” Ringil gestured, as if Egar stood beside him in the company. “And if evidence were needed to support the Dragonbane’s word, then I submit that this is it.”

“Yes, well. Be that as it may, the men we sent failed, and in the meantime Menkarak is still strutting around, making inflammatory speeches about the suffering faithful in Demlarashan.” Jhiral leaned forward again, intent. “Can you get this done for me, Eskiath?”

“For the right price, I can.”

“Which we’ve already been over, yes, thank you.” The Emperor’s lip curled. “I pay out a mercenary cutthroat by forgiving the murder of an imperial war hero at the hands of a steppe barbarian who can’t keep his dick in his breeches. Hardly the stuff of heroic legend, is it?”

Ringil shrugged. “I don’t doubt the palace has poets on staff who could embellish the tale to suit, my lord. If a more inspiring account is ever required, for more public consumption.”

More silence.

Then the Emperor laughed.

Coughed it out at first, startled, disbelieving. Sat back again, laughed longer, louder. Gave himself over to it while those around him exchanged wary, mystified glances. Ringil watched him, impassive. A stiff pause hung over the rest of the company, until, finally, Jhiral’s laughter slowed to a halt. He cleared his throat and shook his head, a man apparently bemused by what was before him.

“You know the real problem here? Hmm?” Jhiral looked around at the assembly, inviting guesses no one was inclined to venture. “I
like
this guy. That’s the problem. I can’t help it, Archeth, I like him. You chose well.”

He turned his attention back to Gil.

“I like you, Ringil Eskiath, Prophet take me up the arse if I don’t. You’re an arrogant little northern thug, you’re trading on not much more than old war stories, a belly for violence, and a few family connections.” Thin, grim slice of a smile on his lips now. “And from what I hear, your bedroom practices wouldn’t bear much scrutiny, either. But there it is—I like you. What am I to do?”

Ringil inclined his head gravely. Hid his own smile in the corner of his mouth. Jhiral looked around at the others again, humor fading out to something colder.

“Give me a hundred men like this one,” he said, slow-gathering weight on the words. “And we could crush Demlarashan overnight—just the way my father crushed Vanbyr. If ever I saw a tool suited to purpose, it stands before me now. Very well.” Nodding grimly. “Yes. I will meet these terms. Prophet knows it’s going to cost me the Ashant clan’s allegiance, but if it rids me of Menkarak, I’ll count that a minor inconvenience. Archeth, you will need to make arrangements for the Dragonbane’s discreet disappearance from the city.”

“Immediately, my lord.”

“No, not
immediately.
” The Emperor’s gaze settled speculatively on Ringil’s face. “The Dragonbane will remain a guest of the palace until such time as our new royal assassin here returns victorious. Payment upon completion of contract, I think we’d all agree, is the best way forward.”

They all agreed, in silence.

Ringil nodded. “And if I don’t make it back?”

“Well, that would be a shame. But if news of Pashla Menkarak’s demise reaches our ears and is confirmed by other sources, say within three days, then I will likewise judge our pact completed. Your terms will be honored, posthumously. You have my word.”

“Three days.”

“Yes. It’s a holy number among the horse tribes down here.” Jhiral smiled bleakly. “Appropriate, wouldn’t you say.”

“There’s a certain resonance.” Ringil examined the nails of his right hand. “And—just to be clear—if at the end of these three days, no news of myself
or
Menkarak’s demise is forthcoming?”

The Emperor lost his smile.

“Well, then matters will become very simple indeed. I’ll assume you to have failed as the others all did. And I will not, after all, need to forgo the good offices of clan Ashant.”