The Cold Commands (59 page)

He leaned forward, eyes locked with Gil’s.

“Is that clear enough for you, my cutthroat northern friend?”

THEY PUT HIM BACK IN THE CELL WITH EGAR AFTER THAT.

He didn’t much mind. In Yhelteth, as in Trelayne, nobility sat in prisons a lot classier than those built for commoners, at least until their longer-term fate was decided. They had tower views of the estuary, albeit through solid bars, regular meals from the palace kitchen, albeit cold by the time they arrived, and well-made room fittings, albeit somewhat worn with use. The purges had seen a steady stream of high-born offenders and their families brought through since the accession, and the traffic was beginning to take its toll on the soft furnishings.

So the mattresses on the two narrow cots were rather lumpy, the plush on the desk chair was threadbare in places, and the once softly pristine desk leather was specked and stained with ink from myriad appeals, confessions, and lawyers’ instructions written out upon it.

“You’re sure you can trust them on this, Gil?”

“Yeah, I told you.” Ringil sat slumped in the chair, staring at the spills and stains as if at some obscure map of where he was going next. “He likes me.”

Egar grunted. “Neat trick. How’d you pull that off?”

“I don’t know.”

The Dragonbane shifted his back against the lumps in the mattress. Watched the bars of orange evening light retreating inch by inch across the ceiling over his head. He hauled himself to his feet, wincing at the stiff pain in his wounded leg, and limped to the window. If you leaned hard against the bars and peered left, you could just make out the rise of the Citadel, like a jagged canine tooth against the southside sky. He stared at it for a while.

“Can’t believe they’re not going to let me go with you.”

“I can’t believe you ever thought they would.”

“What?” Egar left the window and came and stood over him. “I
found
the fucking dwenda, didn’t I? Weren’t for me, no one in this city would be any the wiser, we’d all just be sitting on our hands and looking the wrong fucking way when Menkarak rolls out his angel horde.”

“If that’s what he plans to do.”

“Well—” The Dragonbane, momentarily taken aback. “What else would it be?”

“I don’t know.” Ringil heaved himself to his feet and squeezed past on his way to the other bed. His boot caught on a small child’s rag doll dropped at the desk by some previous occupant—sent it skidding across the cold stone floor. “The dwenda aren’t human, Eg. It probably doesn’t pay to reason as if they were. And whatever they want, they’re the ones using Menkarak, not the other way around.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Menkarak may
think
he’s assembling an angelic guard to storm the palace and take back the Empire for God and the Revelation.” Gil seated himself on the edge of the bed, stared at the discarded doll for a moment. He rolled his neck, trying to work out a crick. “Or whatever. But that doesn’t necessarily make it so.”

“Well, if that’s the case, I mean …” Egar gestured helplessly. “Is killing Menkarak going to do any good?”

Ringil looked up and flashed him a smile. “I have no idea.”

Egar stared at him. Went and sat opposite on the other bed, shoulders slumped. “I thought you’d know what to do.”

“I do know what to do.” Gil swiveled and swung his legs onto the bed, lay full-length, and studied the ceiling. “I’m going to get into the
Citadel, open Menkarak’s throat, and get you pardoned. The rest of it, I’ll make up as I go along.”

“But the dwenda have to be protecting him.”

Gil yawned. “Judging by the dismal failure of Jhiral’s other assassins, yeah, I’d say so.”

“Then you can’t go in there alone!”

“Why not?” He turned his head on the pillow and looked across at the Dragonbane. “They fall down just like men, remember. I’ve killed dwenda before.”

“Not alone!”

“Eg, look.” Ringil sighed. Propped himself up on his elbows. “Be reasonable. Even if they would let you out of here, there’s a hole in your leg the size of a tent flap, the rest of you looks like it got chewed up and spat out by steppe ghouls. You’re in no condition to get in a fight with anyone right now.”

“I was managing pretty fucking well before you came along.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“Nearly took two of those fuckers at the same time up at Afa’marag.”

“So you said.”

“Killed one with my bare hands at Ennishmin.”

“Eg!” He propped himself up farther, met the Dragonbane’s eyes. Held his gaze. “I’ll be fine. All right? Appreciate the sentiment, but I’ll be fine.”

They lay there, together, apart. The bars of warm orange light over their heads went on retreating, sliding away. The breeze coming in through the window turned cool.

“And if you don’t make it back?”

“Hoiran’s fucking balls, Eg! I’ll be fine! You just sit tight. Couple of days at worst. I’ll be back before you know it.”

He heard how the Dragonbane wrestled with what he wanted to say, could almost hear it caught in his throat. He sighed. Closed his eyes.

“What is it, Eg?”

He heard the long breath come out of the other man. “I’ve seen my death, Gil.” Ringil’s eyes snapped open. “You’ve seen
what
?”

“You heard me. The hand of the Dwellers is on me. Death is coming for me, I’ve seen it.”

“Oh, give me a fucking break!” Ringil gestured helplessly at the cell wall. “That’s … that’s a bunch of superstitious Majak horseshit. Seen your death. Take another fucking dragon to kill you, Dragonbane.”

Egar chuckled, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “That’d be nice.”

“Not as I recall.”

“I mean it, Gil. I saw my death. I stood on the Black Folk Span and watched it rumble past me. Ast’naha, carting my ale to Urann’s feast.”

Ringil said nothing.

“Thing is—that’s fine. Dying’s fine. Got to do it sooner or later, and I’ve lived longer than most Majak do. Seen more than I ever dreamed I would.” Egar sat up and faced him. “But I don’t want a shit death, Gil. I don’t want to go murdered by inches by these southern assholes, cabled into the chair in some dungeon, or strapped out for torturers and fucking squid. I got to die, I want to die with steel in my fist, with the sun and wind on my face.”

“You get killed going after Menkarak with me, it’ll be at night,” Ringil pointed out.

“You know what I fucking mean.”

“Yeah. And you’re not going to fucking die.” Ringil rolled to face him. “All right? I don’t know what you saw on the Span, but it means nothing. I’m going out to slit Menkarak’s throat and I’ll be right back. After that, we’re both getting out of this fucking city. Soon. All right?”

But the Dragonbane made no reply, and Ringil’s words sank into the gathering evening gloom like stones into dark water.

Over their heads, the last of the sunset’s rays slipped away.

alf a mile south and east of the Boulevard of the Ineffable Divine, the Citadel’s nighttime influence was a palpable thing, falling over the dourly named streets as solidly as the sweep of its sundial shadow did by day. There were no brothels, taverns, or pipe houses advertising themselves as such, and carvings of opened scriptural tomes stood in every public space, lit by guttering torches bracketed in black iron. Those few women you saw out of doors were wrapped in muddy, monochrome robes that draped them like tents and covered their faces as if they were corpses. The mood in the street was somber and watchful; you didn’t see much violence or laughter. Surly-looking bearded men went about in pairs with Revelation insignia pinned on their tunics and short wooden clubs swinging from their belts, making sure no one was having a good time.

“All since the war,” Taran Alman muttered, apparently feeling the need to apologize. “Ten years back, you didn’t have any of this.”

He might well have been telling the truth—Noyal Rakan certainly nodded agreement, but then again, ten years ago Rakan would scarcely have been shaving. Ringil really couldn’t say either way, nor did he much care. He’d passed through the southside a few times during the war, on the way back and forth from one deployment or another, or out to visit the Kiriath at An-Monal; but he’d always ridden, had never had occasion to dismount. And on broader furlough in the city, he’d never strayed farther south than Archeth’s place on the Boulevard.

It didn’t look as if he’d missed much.

“Up ahead.” The other King’s man, the local expert, nodded forward to where a pair of Citadel enforcers swaggered in the splashes of light from torches and shop frontages. “Alley on the right, after the chandler’s. Let the prick patrol get well ahead first.”

They dawdled about, affecting interest in an ironmonger’s wares spread out on blankets in the street. Four men in dark, unremarkable garb, faces grimed and stubbled, not rich, not poor, not anything you’d think out of the ordinary unless you were looking for it closely. They’d been on foot since the river—a King’s Reach agent there had taken their horses, provided them with nondescript cloaks, and advised Ringil to wear his over the jut of the Ravensfriend. It gave him the look of an unusually tall hunchback, and if anyone stopped to actually think about it, they’d know well enough what was shrouded under the garment—Rakan, Alman, and the other King’s man all wore visible swords at their hip anyway—but chances were no one would bother. The main thing was to cover the gleaming iridescent Kiriath alloys worked into the Ravensfriend’s scabbard and hilt.

The Citadel men forged ahead of them, glowering about and occasionally accosting startled citizens. They stopped to upbraid a woman carrying water canisters with naked hands and the cuffs of her robe rolled up. Rakan crouched to examine a pair of ornate battle-axes laid out separately from the pots and pans and yard tools that made up most of the ironmonger’s display.

“Blessed weapons, my lord.” The ironmonger moved in, sensing a sale. “Consecrated for the war against the Scaled Folk by Grand Invigilator Envar Menkarak himself. See his sigil, carved here upon the shafts. It gives protection to the wielder against dragon venom, the plague, and arrow shafts dipped in filth. Sold me by a veteran of Shenshenath and
Rajal Beach fallen on hard times. And if he survived Rajal, what must that say?”

Ringil, who’d survived Rajal Beach himself, rolled his eyes and touched Rakan lightly on the shoulder. Up the street, the Citadel men had tired of barracking the woman and were making their way into a press of street sellers farther along. Time to move.

Rakan straightened up and murmured some demurral about price.

“But you have yet to
make
me a price, my lord,” the ironmonger yelped, offended. “What is fair and just? What is the holy shield of the Revelation worth to you?”

Ringil leaned in. “I was at Rajal, my friend. I was there. I saw Akal’s Ninth Holy Scourge meet the dragons at the end breakwater.” He smiled unpleasantly at the man. “They
melted
. All of them, blessed or not.”

The ironmonger wet his lips, preparing some reply. His eyes darted to the scar on Ringil’s face, the hump of the sword pommel under his cloak.

“I don’t want any trouble, my lord,” he decided.

“No, you don’t.”

“I honor the service you gave to Revelation and Empire. I repeat only what the weapons’ owner told me. And the sigil is genuine, vouched for.”

“Yeah.”

Ringil turned away and followed his companions up the street to the mouth of the alley. The King’s man shot him an irritated glance as they turned the corner.

“Not smart, that. He’ll remember.”

“Remember what?” A harsh sneering in Ringil’s voice—the memories of Rajal Beach had stirred him up more than he realized. “A pissed-off war veteran in a cheap cloak? I doubt that’s much of a freak occurrence around here.”

The King’s man shrugged and turned away. “Suit yourself. In here.”

Along the alley, he made a coded knocking on the narrow wooden door of a silent, darkened frontage. They waited. After a longish moment, the door opened on greased hinges and a burly figure in tunic and butcher’s apron gestured them inside.

“Go on through,” he told them. “Stairs at the back. Eighth and thirteenth are dodgy.”

They went down a long, darkened corridor that stank of blood and grease, and up the rickety wooden stairs, counting. There were rooms beyond, candlelit, with pig carcasses hung and cuts of meat laid out on tables. Men worked away with knives, carefully not looking up as they passed. The King’s man led them through it all to a back room lit only by bandlight falling in through a pair of broad sash windows. Bare boards, a few grain sacks stacked in corners, and a big wooden tub of what looked in the bluish light to be pig’s blood and offal. The King’s man waited until they assembled around him.

“All right, this is it,” he said tensely. “We go out one of these, and drop. I’ll take you across the rooftops until we hit the Citadel curtain wall. After that, you’re on your own. It’s bedrock there, the crag the place is built on. Plenty of handholds, but it’s a long climb. You sure you want to take that bloody great spike you’re carrying up with you?”

“It’s lighter than it looks,” Ringil told him.

The King’s man pursed his lips. “Still going to get in the way going over. There’s a chink in the battlements, old damage from the last time the Drowned Daughters beat the drum. But it’s narrow, and so are the corridors up to the invigilator levels. Blade that long on your back, I don’t know if I’d—”

“I don’t care what you’d do. If this goes bad, I’m not going up against the Citadel’s men-at-arms with nothing longer on me than a sneak blade.”

The King’s man glanced at Taran Alman for a moment. Alman shrugged. Gestured—
get on with it
. The King’s man grimaced.

“All right, then. Your choice. Now listen carefully. The senior invigilators’ quarters are on the far side of the keep so … ”

He knew. He’d studied the floor plans of the place, along with the charcoal sketch of Menkarak’s face—
smug-looking fucker
was Egar’s passing comment—for a solid couple of hours before he left the cell. He knew the route, the probable exposure points, the few available bolt-hole options. He had it all by heart.