The Dark Defiles (14 page)

Something dark snapped and snarled inside Gil, something reached out smokily for
whoever
that fucking loudmouth
was.
But he lacked the tools to equip it, to send it on its way, and anyway, whatever the dark thing was, it could not find the speaker in the fog, nor break his tongue in time—

“They’ve taken the tower!
Brace up the north end!
”

The cry was taken up. It was the sound of order in the chaos, the sound of their advantage burning down. Ringil reached inside himself. Dredged up a warped, grating roar. Threw back his head again.

“Whore sons of Trelayne!” He barely understood it as his own voice, it was like something from the Grey Places speaking through him. “Whore sons of Trelayne—
come meet your unmaker!
”

And on down the red-running causeway path, bringing the killing steel as he came.

I
T WAS LESS THAN A HUNDRED YARDS TO THE END OF THE WALL, BUT BY
halfway, he was running into harder pellets of resistance and losing men. That rallying, command voice had done something, built something here that wouldn’t give.

At his left shoulder, the first casualty—some privateer with a cutlass proving more than equal to imperial marine training. The marine went down with a groan. But the wedge held—his replacement stepped right over his body and avenged his death in five savage cut-and-thrust blows. Further on, another imperial grappled with a privateer on Gil’s right, lost the white-knuckled struggle for grip and took a knife blade in the guts, staggered backward with a howl. But he clung on and took his killer with him, over the edge of the causeway into the harbor below. Boiling thrash of water, vaguely seen through the fog, then both men were gone.

The next imperial slotted right into the gap. The wedge rolled on.

Salt on the marsh. Mother says
… 

It was the boy, Gerin, the cold voice in his ear. Always the same rote words, the icy urchin touch at the nape of his neck that he’d learned better than to ignore in moments like these. Tugging him downward to a crouch … 

Arrow fire came slicing out of the fog.

“Shields!” he bellowed. His own was already up—the shafts split and feathered it like magic, took down three less wary imperials in an eye blink. They cursed and groaned and tumbled, twisted and fell atop the bodies of men they’d just killed.

“That’s it, lads! Hold the line!”

That fucking voice again.

Yelling from across the harbor at the docks, lanterns coming on. Any element of surprise they’d once had was fast transmuting into the dross of a messy pitched battle. If he didn’t get this nailed down pretty fast … 

He summoned force, summoned voice.

“Men of Trelayne!”
Grateful for once that his own men would mostly not be able to follow the Naomic well enough for it to affect them. “Men of Trelayne,
look to the water! The kraken wakes!
”

And leapt forward behind his shield, into the fog and the figures that bulked there.

He heard the oaths and yelps of shock. A shrill, terrified cry went up from somewhere, a volley of arrows scattered wide and harmless. Briefly, he glimpsed the terror that he’d set loose in their minds, the towering, tentacled bulk, rearing over the harbor wall like some vast, uprooted, upended oak tree, studded with unblinking obsidian eyes. Gray flicker glimpse, there and gone. It didn’t look a lot like the real article he’d faced a few weeks back—way too big, for one thing—but these men were seafarers and they’d come up on a dripping, woven mass of tales about this beast, each more outlandish and distended than the last. Some few might be smart or awake enough to shake off the glamour for what it was, but not many. For the others, their deepest nightmares and fears would do the rest.

A young privateer ran screaming along the causeway at him, eyes blind with fear. Ringil blocked a wild cutlass slash, stepped aside, tripped the man, and shoved him into the water on the harbor side. Something sinuous and muscular coiled up and around him as he flailed, Gil caught a glimpse of the man’s screaming face being engulfed and really wished he hadn’t … 

“Rally!”
The command voice, higher pitched now with desperation. “Rally, you fools! It’s a
trick
! There’s nothing there!”

“No, no—
there’s something in the water, there is!
”

“The
kraken!
”

“It took Perit!”

“Stand, you fools!”

Right.

Time to finish this.

He cut down two more privateers on his way to the commander. It wasn’t hard to do, the state they were in. Block and slice, hack out the leg from under one, pommel into the face of the other, then the short chop to the throat as he staggered back. He shouldered them out of the way, cleared space for himself with the Ravensfriend and now—the fog was finally clearing, burning off as the day got under way—he spotted the rallying point. The commander stood there on a crate, bellowing at the panicking muddle of men around him.

“You!” He stalked forward, sword point raised at the man. “Yeah, you! Want to come down off there and give me a fight?”

The moment seemed to lock up. Men froze in midmotion, weapons half raised, staring. Tendrils of fog, curling back, blown away on a new breeze.

“It’s him,” someone yelled. “It’s Eskiath, I told you he’s not fucking hu—”

The commander—by his jacket badges a mere sergeant—came leaping off the crate, blade in his right hand, short ax in his left.

“With me, lads! Throw this filth back into the sea!”

Ringil met him in a whirl, shield up to block the ax, Ravensfriend swooping low. Forced the other man to parry clumsily downward with his sword. The ax hit and bounced off the Kiriath blade—evil, twanging pain up through Gil’s elbow and shoulder with the impact. He rode it, jerked the shield edge in, looking for a chop into face or head. But the privateer sergeant was too canny a fighter—he’d already backed up, two looping rearward steps, weaving a figure-of-eight blur with his two weapons to cover.

“Get in behind this fuck,” he yelled. “Chop him down.”

But the imperial wedge was already rolling up behind Gil, and the other privateers had opponents of their own to worry about now. Battle was joined, tangled up and snarling across the corpse-littered causeway flagstones. They stared at each other through waxing morning light and an odd moment of calm. Ringil lifted shield and sword, querying.

“Need a rest?”

The sergeant brandished his weapons and roared. “Outlaw faggot
scum!
”

“Oh,
please.
”

He judged the man’s rush, broke it on the instant with his own leaping attack. Led with the Ravensfriend, let the sergeant beat it back with a wild, looping parry and swung in hard with his shield. Got the other man in the chest. Got ground. The ax whistled down and he flung the shield higher, whipped the pommel of the Ravensfriend into the sergeant’s face. Hooked the ax head on the shield edge, ripped the privateer forward off balance, and chopped in under his ribs. The man screamed, swung wildly with his sword arm, but the ax was still snagged and Ringil just leapt back, hauling the clinch. The sergeant tripped or slipped on blood, fell headlong forward at Gil’s feet, still dragged on ax and shield. Ringil flipped the Ravensfriend over from horizontal guard to downward jag, stabbed down hard between the man’s back ribs, shoulder turn and full weight behind the blow. There was mail over the man’s jerkin, but lightweight and cheap, links most likely rusted with time at sea; the Kiriath steel went through it like an arrow at full draw. The sergeant spasmed and groaned, let go his ax haft, and Gil’s shield came free.

He withdrew the Ravensfriend, judged the man done, looked about for fresh targets.

But the fight was all but finished. The imperials were still rolling forward, and any discipline the privateers had once had was broken. Strictly mopping up from here on in. Gil stalked about anyway, hamstrung a man here, belted another in the head with his shield, just to speed things up. The imperials fell on his victims and finished them.

Unexpected glint off the Ravensfriend’s edge—he peered upward through the clearing fog.

Looked like the sun was going to come out after all.

hey came down off the flat rock in single file behind the Dragonbane, giving clefts and blowholes a suitably wide berth. There was more debris from the wreck along the way—crates here and there, like lost dice from some abandoned game among giants; spars and tangled rigging, some of it up-jutting out of gaps in the rock where wind and waves had driven it or perhaps—she shivered slightly at the thought—where it had later been dragged. Here, the smashed ribs and soggy white spill of a shattered flour barrel. There, a scattering of galley pans. And just once, like so much knotted-up wet laundry flung down, a privateer corpse, sprawled bonelessly on the rock.

A couple of the men made sketched gestures of blessing over the dead man as they went past, some business with open palm and a couple of fingers kissed. Hand to chest, briefly bowed head. It dawned on a groggy Archeth, as she watched the ritual, that at least half her rescue party were also privateers.

The others she made for Tand’s men, with the exception of a single young Majak and a pair of marines. But they all followed the Dragonbane as one.

She went up the line, caught him up.

“Got these guys eating out of your hand, don’t you?” she said in Tethanne. “How’d you swing that one?”

Egar shrugged. “Someone’s got to be in charge.”

“Okay. But … a prisoner of war?”

“Look around you, Archidi. Things have changed.”

She let that go, looked out in silence to the rinsed gray horizon and the unquiet sea. The curve of a shingle beach just ahead of them, the rise of jagged uplands beyond. It was a pretty bleak shore they’d wrecked on.

“You recognize anything?” she asked, more quietly.

“Not here, no. We’ve got to be a long way farther north than the expeditionary ever made it.” He pointed ahead. “Follow this coast far enough south, there’s a big river delta with Kiriath ruins on the northern shore. It’s where we burned the lizard rafts with your father’s machines. We need to find that river. Then I’ll know where we are. Then I can get us home.”

They reached the limits of the flat rock, jumped down into the crunch of the shingle. More flotsam strewn along the strand ahead of them, some of it still washing around in the shallows. She stopped, shaded her eyes, and looked farther out, saw a bobbing carpet of the stuff there as well. No sign of any intact portion of the ship itself.

Further along the beach, someone had built a driftwood fire. Pale flames, barely visible in the harsh gray daylight. Men huddled around, jostling for warmth.

Archeth nodded at them. “How many we got?”

“Thirty-four, all told. I sent another party to scout the rocks southward, see if we find anybody else.”

She glanced back at her rescue party. “What’s the split?”

Another shrug. “What you see there—some League, some of Tand’s freebooters, a few marines mixed in. There’s a few Eternals, too, but I left them in charge of the other party and the fire.”

“Any more Majak?”

“A couple.” Egar grimaced. “Not a lot of use for swimming up on the steppe, most of them never learn.”

“Did you find … Kaptal?” She’d been going to ask after Shendanak, or his sodden corpse anyway, then thought better of it. “Or Tand?”

The Dragonbane shook his head. “Kaptal, no. No sign. And Tand went on the other ship—
Flight of the
 … 
going west
or whatever it was. With Shendanak and Shanta, remember?”

She did now. “
Gull—Flight of the Westward Gull.
Yeah, but …”

“But what?”

“Well.” She gestured helplessly. “There’s a lot of wreckage.”

“All from the one ship.” The Dragonbane jerked a thumb back at one of the accompanying privateers. “According to that guy, anyway, and he was second watch steersman on
Lord of the Salt Wind.
Figure he ought to know what he’s talking about. Seems pretty certain the other ship didn’t wreck, nor the
Pride.
Or at least—they didn’t wreck around here.”

They reached the fire. One of the Throne Eternal, she didn’t know him by name, came to meet her and bowed his head. He was bedraggled and damp, but there was still a drilled poise in the way he stood that made her abruptly long for Yhelteth and home.

“Alwar Nash, my lady. At your service. It brings me joy to find you hale. Will you come closer to the fire?”

The solicitude melted some tiny chunk of something inside her, and for the first time she realized that her clothes were damp, that her head and body both ached from bruises she’d collected in the wreck, that she was in fact
pretty fucking cold—

She locked down a shiver, nodded weary thanks. Nash turned and brusquely ushered the crouched or kneeling men aside to make a path nearer the fire. There were some resentful glances, but between Archeth’s alien looks and Nash’s take-no-shit Throne Eternal demeanor, no one seemed to want to make an issue of it. She stood at the wall of heat like a supplicant, holding out her hands to it, trying not to shudder with pleasure as the warmth seeped into her chilled and battered body.

There was some muttering among the privateers by the fire, the usual thing, and she would have paid it little attention, except that she saw the second steersman stride in among them, point back at her, and murmur something urgent. At which point the muttering dried up faster than a desert martyr’s blood. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a couple of the men make some gesture of … 
What’s that? Obeisance?

“What’s going on?” she asked Egar as he joined her in the warmth. “I get that they don’t like the burned-black witch. But this is new.”

The Dragonbane glanced over at the privateer huddle. “Yeah, forgot to mention. Reason we found you so fast? You were caught up on the bowsprit lines and the snapped top half of the figurehead, too. The whole lot was jammed in there, sticking back up into the sky like a big fucking arrow pointing us to where you were.”

“Yeah, so?”

Egar hesitated. “Thing is, when we got there, it looked like the figurehead had hold of you by one ankle. Ship’s called
Lord of the Salt Wind,
remember? That’s Takavach—Dakovash of the Dark Court for these guys—and the figurehead was his likeness. Looks like the Salt Lord grabbed you by the leg in the storm, hung on, and saved your life.”

She shot him a sidelong look. “You’re not serious?”

“Hey, you’re looking at the man Takavach showed up in person to save from a brother slaying back up on the steppe. What do I know? And another thing? Privateers and marines both are all muttering that was no natural storm hit us last night. Certainly came on pretty fucking fast.”

“But—”

“Look, it doesn’t matter, Archidi. Believe what you want. But if these men think you’re some kind of favorite with their Dark Court, it’s going to be handy for keeping order. So don’t knock it down.”

“No problem.” She rubbed her hands together thankfully in the warmth from the flames. “Been the bad smell in the room around here for quite long enough. Adulation’s going to make a nice change.”

A
LITTLE LATER, SHE FELT WELL ENOUGH TO REALIZE SHE WAS HUNGRY AND
asked Egar quietly about supplies. He shook his head.

“We’re pretty low. Couple of oil jars with the seals still on, found them floating in the breakers. And there’s a salted ham we might be able to salvage some of. Got an intact crate over there with some ship’s biscuit in. Seawater got to some of it, but to be honest you need to soak that shit in brine before you can eat it anyway.” He looked at the backs of his battle-scarred hands. “It’ll do for now. Water’s the bigger problem.”

She brooded on the chains of jagged rising rock that formed the hinterland view. “There’s got to be some up there somewhere though, right?”

“Somewhere, yeah. But it could be a long way, and when we find it, it may not be safe to drink. Couple of times on the expeditionary, your father told us not to drink the water we found. Said it was likely poisoned.”

“Great. So do we scout or—”

A cry from someone on the other side of the fire. Egar and Archeth stepped wide of the billowing heat haze the flames gave off. Saw returning figures dotted along the shingle to the south. Moving slowly by the look of it—for some reason Archeth thought of men walking into the teeth of a roaring gale.

“My eyes aren’t what they used to be,” the Dragonbane muttered. “Is that … are they carrying someone back there? The last ones in the file?’

“Or some
thing.
” Archeth squinted. “Hard to tell. I count eleven men walking, anyway. That right?”

Egar grunted. “Four more than I sent out.”

They watched and waited as the party straggled in. Archeth recognized the Throne Eternal who led them—Selak Chan, the man who’d come aboard
Pride of Yhelteth
and found her trying to sink Anasharal in the harbor. His young face seemed to have aged ten years since she saw it last, but as with Alwar Nash, there was a trained spine of determination to his stance that gave her a little hope. He bowed deeply as he reached her.

“My lady. Such fortune we could not have hoped for. My life at your command. And with the news I bring—”

“You found survivors?” Egar broke in pragmatically.

Chan nodded, gestured back. “Two League, a Majak kid and one of Tand’s. All in pretty good shape—one of the League guys has a couple of broken fingers, but we splinted them up. Tand’s dog is limping, says he did something to his knee. But he can walk.”

“So who are you … carrying …” Voice fading out as she saw.

The last two men in the party were both League sailors. They’d slung a couple of lengths of three-inch rope across their shoulders and to form a nifty makeshift carry cable between. Hanging from the rope, like some giant crab caught up on netting, was a Kiriath machine.

Anasharal … ?

It took her measurable moments to realize it was not—could not be—the Helmsman.

First of all, no mention of Anasharal had been made by her captors at any point, and she had to assume that it was still skulking aboard
Sea Eagle’s Daughter
somewhere, silently imitating some inanimate object.

Yeah, or dazzling Klithren and his men with some sorcerous shit or other, and securing passage south.

In any case, the thing the men carried was no Helmsman. It was smaller than Anasharal, for one thing, and more skeletal in frame. The central mass was dwarfed by powerful limbs, whose articulations would have risen well above the body itself when the thing walked, and by two of which it now hung suspended from the rope sling. It was like some nightmare version of a Helmsman, some predatory fantasy Anasharal might once have dreamed of itself.

“What the fuck is that?” Egar, asking it for all of them.

“Dunno,” grunted one of the men carrying the sling. “But it’s very fucking heavy.”

He nodded to his companion and the two of them shucked the rope sling in a single neat motion. The crablike thing clanked and rattled loudly on the shingle as it landed. It lay there on its back, legs splayed and draped outward, while the men from the fire crowded around to stare.

“Is it dead?” someone asked wonderingly.

“Looks that way,” said the sailor who’d complained about the weight. “Looks like they burned it up or something.”

It was true—now she looked at it carefully, Archeth saw that the thing was blackened and charred all over. Parts of it even seemed to have melted, something she found hard to credit despite the evidence of her own eyes. Her people built habitually out of materials that would withstand great heat. Outside of dragon venom, which ate pretty much anything it touched, the only time she’d seen substantial damage to Kiriath alloys was—

Khangset.

She still remembered her first view from the rise above the town—Khangset’s seaward ramparts torn and melted through when the dwenda came calling, the damage done as if by gigantic white-hot claws.

The Talons of the Sun,
Ringil told her they called it. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was, had himself never seen it in action. From what he did know, it seemed the dwenda used it like volleys of flaming arrows to open passage, to sew chaos and terror ahead of an assault or simply to obliterate everything in their path.

Later, she’d found fleeting reference to it in the war chronicles her people left behind. But the language was ornate and unhelpful—usually a sure sign of the writer covering for their own lack of knowledge or reliable memory. She’d talked to the Helmsmen and not gotten much further. They’d been around for the war, four thousand years back, but they couldn’t tell her much more than she’d already gleaned elsewhere. They’d seen what the Talons did, had perfect recall of smoldering ruins and whole armies charred to ash, but the strike had always come from a place they could not see. They had some largely incomprehensible explanation of how this might work, one that lost Archeth at the first bend.

“Where did you find this?” she asked Chan.

The Throne Eternal nodded back over his shoulder. “At the bottom of a gully, my lady, on the other side of the headland. There were quite a few like it, all piled up there. I believe they must have come from the fortress.”