The Dark Defiles (21 page)

“Well, he isn’t anymore.” She hadn’t enjoyed watching Sogren die any more than anyone else, but she was fucked if she was going to tax herself with summoning sympathy or any species of regret. “So you’d better start getting used to the idea.”

“Yeah, easy for you to—” Egar made a noise in his throat and turned away, whatever else he had to say bitten off and swallowed.

“Easy how?” she demanded.

“Forget it.”

“No! How is this any fucking easier for me than it is for you?”

The Dragonbane gestured around them. “You’re home, aren’t you? Apartments fit for a Kiriath queen. The Empress of all you survey.”

She followed the motion. Tharalanangharst’s hospitality was lavish, true enough. She had rooms of palatial expanse, windowed for a view out over the ocean and the coastal headland to the south. The bedchamber was furnished with a bed big enough to sleep a whole family in comfort, there was a bathing annex with a bath seemingly built with the same family in mind, and the lounge she sat in provided ample scope for the Dragonbane’s pacing. The roof space was high, the alloy flooring was polished to a gloss that made it look like well-cared-for wood, and strewn with multiple carpets in jagged Kiriath designs. Beyond a discreet archway to one side, there was a dining chamber containing a table set for ten and near enough space to ride a horse around the outside.

If the decor was somber, metallic, and rather thin on adornment of any sort, well, she was used to that from An-Monal.

“That’s a bitchy crack, Eg. I’m as far from home as you are, and you know it.”

The Dragonbane sighed. Came to the couch she was seated on, dropped onto it beside her. Pinched finger and thumb to his eyes.

“I know. I’m sorry.” He dropped his hand from his face. “But Sogren was herd bull for the privateers. Now he’s gone, I’m likely going to have to do the whole dominance thing all over again, just to keep them in step.”

“You think they’ll try to leave?”

“Not right away, no.” Egar nodded at the stupendous bowl of fruit that stood on an ornamental table beside the couch. A brace of Tharalananghast’s smaller creatures spidered about in it, restocking and removing the sucked-clean stones and pips Archeth had left when she fell on the fruit earlier. “I mean, look at that little lot. They’re not stupid; they’ll fill their bellies while they have the chance. They’ll want to get warm and dry, get some rest. But after that …”

He scowled.

“You really think they’d mutiny?”

“I think they’ll be fed and rested, they’ll have had time to think and talk, and they won’t be any less pissed off about Sogren. I don’t know about outright mutiny, but it’ll make them slippery to handle once we set out south. And it’s certainly going to put a dent in their liking for you.”

“I thought I was chosen of the Dark Court since Dakovash grabbed my ankle.”

“Yeah, and now you’re friend to a demonic power that’s butchered one of their own right before their eyes.”

“And is feeding and sheltering the rest of them in the lap of luxury,” she snapped. “If I were a privateer, I’d be counting my fucking blessings.”

“Maybe they are, right now. But that kind of gratitude fades pretty fast. What they’re going to remember when we head south is that Sogren was killed while we all watched, and none of them did a fucking thing about it. That’s going to rankle and rot inside them, and sooner or later, they’re going to want to cleanse the wound.” He shook his head. “It’s not a showdown I’m looking forward to having.”

“They’re not a majority.” She’d been too tired and beaten down and krin-deprived to do the count properly at any point - made her eyes ache just to try. “Are they?”

“Not outright, no. But they outnumber each of the other factions well enough, and there’s no telling where Tand’s freebooters are going to stand if it comes to a fight.” Egar sighed again, leaned back on the couch, and stared at the iron-beamed ceiling four yards over their heads. “All right, look, forget it—for now anyway. I guess we’re cozy enough here for the moment. Give me another one of those plums.”

She scooped it off the pile, black and ripe, handed it to him. He bit into the flesh, spilled juice down his chin, chewed with his eyes still on the ceiling.

“Ate a ton of these in my room earlier,” he said, a bit indistinctly. “Still can’t believe how good they taste. How long you reckon this place has been here?”

She shrugged. “My people chased the dwenda out anything between four and five thousand years ago, depending on which sources you want to believe. Tharalanangharst seems to have had a hand in that, so you’re looking at that long at least. Why?”

“Just wondering where all the food came from.” He looked at the remainder of his plum. “This is fresh off the tree.”

“It’s out of store, apparently. They say this part of the world was a garden paradise before the Kiriath came. The Wastes are what was left here after we went to war with the dwenda. They must have harvested for a siege, laid down the stores, and then never used them.”

“Stores that last five thousand years?” There wasn’t any real incredulity in the Dragonbane’s voice; he was mildly surprised at most. He bit into the plum again. “Neat trick if you can pull it off. So you think any of this stuff can exist outside of the fortress? Or will it turn to dust if we try to take it away?”

“No, why would it?”

“Well, you know.” he gestured. “Spells and such. They say up on the steppe you can find the finest silver where a falling star hits the Earth, but you have to get to it before the sun comes up or it turns to dross.”

“That’s just superstition, Eg. Just tales. My people were engineers, not magicians.”

“There’s a difference?”

Since she sometimes had a hard time seeing the difference herself, she let it go. “So how are your rooms?”

“Good.” Egar spat the plum stone into his palm. Looked around in vain for somewhere to dump it. “Not as big as these. Got a view out to sea. You think there’s any chance of meat in this place? I’d kill for some decent meat.”

“I’d be surprised if there isn’t. An-Monal was always pretty well stocked.”

He nodded at the ceiling. “Think it’s listening to us?”

“I have no idea. Like I said, it’s a Warhelm. I never met one before, I’ve only read about them.” She heard how her voice took on the cadences of her father’s lectures, the same words and phrases borrowed wholesale, some of them still only partially understood. “But they reckon the exigencies made for some pretty weird behavior. Thing is, when you summon something as powerful as a Helmsman from the void, you usually want it leashed pretty tight, kept pretty attentive to your needs. Otherwise, who knows what it’ll go off and do that’s more interesting than looking after you. So you lay down protocols, you cement a complex dependency. You make what you’ve summoned need you as much as you need it. But the Warhelms aren’t like that, they couldn’t be. There wasn’t time. They are raw power and purpose, and they were called to the world in a hurry, purely to defeat the dwenda. There were no other considerations, and no other purpose for them once the war was done.”

The Dragonbane frowned. “You think they’d be any use in a war against someone else? Someone not the dwenda, I mean?”

She shrugged again. “You saw what happened to Sogren.”

“Yeah. You know, Archidi, I got to wonder if this is what your father was really doing up here on the expeditionary. I mean, I know we went to burn the Scaled Folk’s rafts before they could hatch out, but what if after that, Flaradnam was planning to come looking for this place, looking to enlist its help.”

“That,” said the voice of the Warhelm suddenly from the air, “is not likely.”

It spoke Tethanne this time, perhaps intending to be inclusive. She exchanged a look with Egar. “You’ve been listening to us?”

“No, but I am listening to you now.”

“Seems a bit convenient,” said the Dragonbane, studiously casual. He dumped his plum stone surreptitiously down by the side of the couch. “Why now particularly?”

“You mentioned
kir
-Archeth’s father by name. I knew
kir
-Flaradnam Indamaninarmal well. He was instrumental in my summoning from the void, and we fought side by side to end the Aldrain presence.”

“Well, then.” Archeth spread her hands. “He probably
was
on his way to see you back in fifty-two. It would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

“It would not. Your father and I were not on good terms by the time the Aldrain were driven out, and we certainly never reconciled.” Hard to tell if something shifted now in the tight-strung amiability of Tharalanangharst’s tone, but she thought she heard a chill there. “It was, after all,
kir
-Flaradnam who crippled and blinded me at the end.”

ingil tensed for the inevitable blow.

Saw a cloth-muffled face lean over him, familiar eyes above the mask, creased in boyish concern … 

No fucking way!

He jerked in his bonds. Grunted against the gag.

Noyal Rakan pulled the masking cloth down off his firm young mouth and chin, put fingers slantwise across his lips for quiet.

“Have you loose in just a moment, my lord,” he whispered. “Don’t move.”

Yeah, like I got a fucking choice about that, you stupid fucking gorgeous idiot beautiful wait till I get loose of these
… 

Rakan already had fingers at the back of Ringil’s neck, exploring the gag. He conjured a knife in his left hand, pressed Gil’s head gently over to one side, and sliced deftly through the knotted silk. Ringil shoved at the wedge in his mouth with a tongue that felt like a chopped-off piece of two-inch rope. He coughed the chunk of wood loose as the Throne Eternal captain lifted away the severed silk bonds of the gag. He spat it out onto his chest with a relief that watered his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he croaked.

“Skulked aboard last night while they were loading.” Rakan worked rapidly on Gil’s bonds with the knife as he talked. “Been hiding in the grain store since we made sail. Took me awhile to work out where they were keeping you. Can you walk?”

“I doubt it.” Ringil flexed his hands as Rakan sliced the cords away, grimacing at the numbness. “Anyway, we’re not leaving. I want to be right here when Klithren comes back.”

The Throne Eternal looked baffled. “You want to stay
put
? My lord, I—this lantern is from the bracket outside the cabin, someone’s going to notice it’s gone. We need to get you out of here fast.”

“And go where? We’re at sea, Noy. What are we going to do, jump over the side?
Swim
back to Ornley?”

“No, but—”

Ringil flexed his mouth in an ugly, down-curved smile. His parched lips split, thin splinters of pain somehow driving the grin.

“We’re going to fucking take this ship, Noy. You and me, with a little help from our friend Klithren. Now get my feet and help me up. I’m going to cramp like fuck, but that’s fine. Need to work it off.”

Rakan sliced the ropes binding Gil’s legs in place, got an arm around his shoulders, helped him into a sitting position on the edge of the cot. Sure enough, cramp sank its fangs into his calf the moment he tried to put pressure on that foot. He grunted, stiffened—felt Rakan’s arm tighten around his shoulder. He turned sideways to look at the Throne Eternal in the low light.

“How the … I thought you were gone, Noy. Captured, sent south for ransom or dead or worse, I—” He swallowed painfully, reached down to massage his calf as best he could with numb fingers and palm. “I mean, what the fuck happened while I was gone?”

The Throne Eternal looked away, something like shame in his face.

“We were unprepared,” he said quietly. “They landed men down the coast and stormed the town from the top, while one of their vessels stopped up the harbor below. When I saw the ship, I took five men and went looking for the lady Archeth. She was supposed to be at Menith Tand’s lodgings, but when I got there both were gone, no way to know where. We cut back to the harbor, but by then this pirate scum were in the streets, along the wharf, everywhere. We fought, but …”

He looked back at Ringil.

“I knew you’d be coming back. I took my men, only three left by then and one of them wounded. We cut loose a small-boat at the beach, got it past the League ship, out of the harbor and along the shoreline. I hoped to find you, warn you before you sailed back into the trap.”

He stared miserably at the cabin floor.

“I abandoned the lady Archeth. The Emperor’s anointed agent in the flesh. I failed my sworn charge. I told myself it was for the best, that saving you would save the others in the end. But that’s not—that’s not why I, I …”

Ringil took the hand he was using to work at his cramped leg, pressed it hard against Rakan’s averted face. Hints of pain beginning to spike through the numb flesh now as circulation returned, he couldn’t feel much else. But he pulled the young Throne Eternal around fully to face him. Placed the other hand on his other cheek and pulled him close. Kissed him hard on the mouth, for all that it cracked his dried up lips again and hurt the scorched rag of his tongue. He pushed back and held the other man’s face only inches from his own.

“I’m very glad you did,” he said distinctly. “I’m in your debt, Noy. Really. I’m … honored by this.”

Rakan licked his lips. “But—”

“And we will get Archeth and the others back, no matter what it takes. Count on it. Your oath is not broken, you have done nothing wrong.”

“We tried to find you.” The Throne Eternal’s voice was urgent, pleading. He pulled away from Ringil’s grip, stared at the floor again. “We tried, but night came on. None of us are accomplished seamen, we’re not marines. Akal was sinking into a fever, losing blood. In the end we had to beach and build a fire for him. We sat with him, we …”

Rakan swallowed. Tears bright in his eyes. Not for the first time, Gil was forcibly reminded how young this tight-muscled warrior lover he’d taken still was.

“When the morning came, he was stiff and cold,” Rakan whispered. “We buried him as best we could without tools. Offered prayer, scattered salt. There was a peak behind the beach; we climbed it and scanned the horizon northward for your sail. We stayed there all day. But then, with evening, the fog came, the storm blew up out to sea. We couldn’t manage the boat in weather like that.”

“No.”
Probably would have got eaten by the akyia into the bargain.

“We walked inland. We thought to raid some croft, feed ourselves at least and keep our strength up. But we’d walked almost back to Ornley before we saw any signs of life. We made out lights in the mist, but when we got closer, when we realized where we were …”

Ringil grunted. “Yeah, fog’ll get you all turned around like that. Lose your sense of distance, direction, everything. Done it myself a few times.”

He forced himself to his feet and hobbled across the cabin to its single porthole. His other leg cramped up in the thigh on the way, but it wasn’t as bad as the calf had been. His fingers were starting to really hurt now as blood forced its way back into them. He braced on the cabin wall with both hands, bowed his head to look through the porthole. Saw a narrow slice of band-lit ocean, the dark crumpled rise of a shoreline beyond. Standard night voyage precautions—they were shadowing the Hironish coast, but far enough out to stay safe. Looked like the privateers had put to sea pretty much as soon as they could tidy up the aftermath in Ornley and get Ringil loaded aboard. Klithren must be in a real hurry to get his bounty home.

“We heard the fighting on the breeze as we approached.” Rakan evidently still felt the need to explain. “But by the time the mist cleared and we could make any sense, it was over. All we could do was skulk and wait for nightfall. Learn what we could, plan from that. Nalak and Jan took the upper town, I went to the harbor. We were supposed to meet back up on the cliff road. But when I saw them carrying you aboard …”

“Yeah.”
Enough talk, Gil. And enough bloody brooding—what is this, one of Skimil Shend’s poetry soirees?
He turned away from the porthole. “Listen, Noy, you’d better get that lantern back outside on its bracket.”

He limped back toward the cot, gauging the strength in his legs. Still not great, but getting better by the minute. Across from him, Rakan was already on his feet, like it was parade call. He swept up the lantern and slipped out the door, plunged the cabin back into gloom.

Ringil lowered himself to the cot, swung his legs back up and lay flat. The pain of returning circulation was spiking right through his hands now, but along with the pain there was functional feeling as well.

Yeah, might even be able to hold a sword sometime later this month.

“All right, listen,” he told Rakan, as soon as the Throne Eternal was back in the darkened room with the door closed. “Get back by the hinges. You’re going to jump Klithren soon as he comes in here. Hurt him, put him on the floor, but whatever you do, don’t stab him. We need him alive.”

Rakan nodded, barely seen in the gloom, and sank into a comfortable crouch in the space where the door would hinge back. As if on cue, the hurrying multitude stomp of feet on wood came from somewhere overhead.

But it faded again and no one came.

“Think it’s another ship,” murmured Rakan. “Heard the crow’s nest call out something just before I came down here. I mean, I don’t speak Naomic or anything, but if there’s one word I have picked up in the last couple of months, it’s
ship.
Gave me my best chance to move, too. Must have had every man on deck over at the rail to look.”

“You couldn’t work out anything else they said?”

Rakan’s dimly seen form shook its head. “Nothing. They sounded pretty pissed off, though.”

An Empire warship this far north was a flat-out impossibility. And Ringil couldn’t see any reason why sighting random League traffic of any sort would upset the privateers.

Which left only one explanation, really.

“Get ready,” he told the Throne Eternal cheerfully. “If this is what I think it is, we’re about to have some very angry company.”

A solid, jolting impact nearly tipped Noyal Rakan out of his crouch. Then another, less violent, and then a couple more gentle bumps. Shouts of satisfaction from above. Gil recognized the pattern from the time they’d been boarded by a customs frigate on the run-in to Lanatray. Whatever ship Klithren’s lookout had sighted, they’d come up on it now and were engaged. Grappling irons and boathooks would lock the two vessels together until they could be properly lashed. Meantime, the privateers were amply competent to swing or leap aboard, take stock, and then … 

They waited.

They didn’t have to wait long. A shocked cry came in the porthole, then others, high pitched with fear and disgust. A wider chaos of yelling above as men still on board this ship tried to get sense out of those who had boarded the other.

Now he wondered if they shouldn’t have tried to sneak out of the cabin after all. There’d be enough confusion on deck to maybe let them find some other place to hide. Leave an empty cot and the loose coils of rope, a vanishing trick from the terrifying black mage they’d so foolishly taken captive … 

Yeah, and then what, Gil?

Over the side and swim? We’d drown before we got halfway to the coast.

Stow away on a boat full of privateers out for blood who know her stem to stern? How long’s that going to last?

And even if we could, even if you could somehow buy time to use the
ikinri ‘ska
and kill them all off—who’s going to sail us back to Ornley? Elementals again? The akyia? It was hard enough last time, with a fully competent crew to keep
Dragon’s Demise
trimmed. We’re two men, and neither of us knows any sea-craft worth a back-alley fuck.

You need to own this ship, Gil. Ship and crew, stem to stern. There is no other way.

There is nothing wrong with a defensive strategy,
he’d written in his treatise on warfare, back when he still thought it might see the published light of day,
save that it hands over the initiative to the enemy. So you’d better hope you’re strong enough, fortified enough in defense, to withstand whatever that enemy decides, in the luxury of time and choice you’ve given them, to start throwing at you.

And if you are not that strong—then offense and a colossal bluff may be the better option.

He heard boots stamping down on companionway steps close by.

“Show time,” he hissed at Rakan.

The latch. The door flung back. Klithren stormed into the cabin amid a spill of light from outside. He hadn’t bothered to take the lantern down from its bracket.

“What the fuck have you done, Eskiath? What the fu—”

Rakan hit him from the side like something demonic. Chopping blows into neck and temple, a savage stomp into the back of one knee to fold and take him down, and a vicious kidney punch as the Throne Eternal rode his victim to the floor. Klithren convulsed and groaned, tried to get up, and found an arm across his throat, a dagger point at his eye.

“I’d lie still if I were you.” Ringil told him, up off the cot at a speed he felt quite pleased with, all things considered. “That’s a Throne Eternal blade in your face.”

He limped rapidly to the cabin door, hooked the lantern on his arm and brought it in, shut the door solidly, and turned back to his new captive. He set the lantern down, well away from Klithren and Rakan’s clinch on the floor. He grinned down at the floored mercenary.

“Change of dealer,” he said. “But the game remains much the same.”

“They’re going to fucking kill you now, Eskiath.” The words choked out of Klithren. “Nothing I can do, nothing anyone can do. You think one imperial sneak assassin at your back is going to change that?”