The Dark Defiles (3 page)

“So instead, you’re going to take orders from him?”

“Nah, it’s not like that. It’s a competition, isn’t it, boys?” The Majak warriors stopped what they were doing to the islander for a moment. Looked up like dogs called off. Shendanak waved them back to the task. “Tand sets his mercenaries to interrogating. I do the same with the brothers. See who finds out where that grave and that treasure is first. Thousand elemental payoff and a public obeisance for the winner.”

“Right.” Egar sat on the edge of the table and watched as two of the Majak held the islander up while a third planted heavy punches into his stomach and ribs. “Menith Tand’s a piece-of-shit slave trader with a hard-on for hurting people, and he’s bored. What’s your excuse?”

Shendanak squinted at him thoughtfully.

“Heard about your little run-in with Nabak. You really bottle him over some fishwife whore you wouldn’t share? Doesn’t sound like you.”

“I bottled him because he pulled a knife on me. You need to keep a tighter grip on your cousins, Klarn.”

“Oh, indeed.”

It was hard to read what was in Shendanak’s voice. Abruptly, his eyes widened and he grabbed the flagon again, lifted it off the tabletop as the islander staggered back into the table and clung there, panting. The man was bleeding from the mouth and nose, his lips were split and torn where they’d been smashed repeatedly into his teeth. Both his eyes were blackening closed and his right hand looked to have been badly stomped. Still, he pushed himself up off the table with a snarl. The Majak bracketed him, dragged him—

“You know what?” said Shendanak brightly. He gestured with the flagon “I really don’t think this one knows anything. Why don’t you let him go? Just leave him there. Go on and have a drink before we start on the next one. It’s thirsty work, this.”

The Majak looked surprised, but they shrugged and did as they were told. One of them gave the beaten man a savage kick behind the knee and then spat on him as he collapsed in the street. Laughter, barked and bitten off. The three of them went back into the inn, shaking out their scraped knuckles and talking up the blows they’d dealt. Shendanak watched them through the door, waited for it to close before he looked back at Egar.

“My cousins are getting restless, Dragonbane. They were promised an adventure in a floating alien city and a battle to the death against a black shaman warrior king. So far, both those things have been conspicuous by their absence.”

“And you think beating the shit out of the local populace is going to help?”

“No, of course not.” Shendanak leaned up and peered over the table at where the islander lay collapsed on the greasy cobbles. He settled back in his seat. “But it will let the men work out some of their frustration. It will exercise them. And anyway, like I said, I really can’t lose face to a sack of shit like Menith Tand.”

“I’m going to talk to Tand,” growled Egar. “Right now.”

Shendanak shrugged. “Do that. But I think you’ll find he doesn’t believe these interrogations are going to help any more than I do. That’s not what this is about. Tand’s men are better trained than mine, but in the end they’re soldiers just the same. And you and I both know what soldiers are like. They need the violence. They crave it, and if you starve them of it for long enough, you’re going to have trouble.”

“Trouble.” Egar spoke the word as if he were weighing it up. “So let me get this straight—you and Tand are doing this because you want to
avoid
trouble?”

“In essence, yes.”

“In
essence,
is it?”
Fucking court-crawling wannabe excuse for a
… He held it down. Measured his tone. “Let me tell you a little war story, Klarn. You know, the war you managed to sit out, back in the capital with your horse farms and your investments?”

“Oh, here we fucking go.”

“Yeah, well. You talk about soldiers like you were one, so I thought I’d better set you straight. Back in the war, when we came down out of the mountains at Gallows Gap, I had this little half-pint guy marching at my side. League volunteer, never knew his name. But we talked some, the way you do. He told me he came from the Hironish isles, cursed the day he ever left. You want to know why?”

Shendanak sighed. “I guess you’re going to tell me.”

“He left the islands, married a League woman, and made a home in Rajal. When the Scaled Folk came, he saw his wife and kids roasted and eaten. Only made it out himself because the roasting pit collapsed in on itself that night and he got buried in the ash. You want to try and imagine that for a moment? Lying there choking in hot ash, in silence, surrounded by the picked bones of your family, until the lizards fuck off to dig another pit? He burned his bonds off in the embers—I saw the scarring on his arms—then he crawled a quarter of a mile along Rajal beach through the battle dead to get away. Are you listening to me, you brigand fuckwit?”

Shendanak’s gaze kindled, but he never moved from the chair. Horse thief, bandit, and cutthroat in his youth, he’d likely still be handy in a scrap, despite his advancing years and the prodigious belly he’d grown. But they both knew how it’d come out if he and the Dragonbane clashed. He made a pained face, sat back, and folded his arms.

“Yes, Dragonbane, I’m listening to you.”

“At Gallows Gap, that same little guy saved my life. He took down a pair of reptile peons that got the jump on me. Lost his ax to the first one; he split its skull and while it was thrashing about dying, it tore the haft right out of his grip. So he took the other one down
with his bare hands.
He died with his arm stuffed down its throat to block the bite. Tore out its tongue before he bled out. Am I getting through to you at all?”

“He was from here. Tough little motherfucker. Yeah, I get it.”

“Yeah. If you or Tand stir these people up, you’re going to have a local peasant uprising on your hands. We won’t cope with that; we’re not an army of occupation. In fact”—Egar’s lip curled—“we’re not an army of any kind. And we are a long way from home.”

“We have the marines, and the Throne Eternal.”

“Oh, don’t be a fucking idiot. Even with Tand’s mercenaries and your thug cousins, we have a fighting muster under two hundred men. That’s not even garrison strength for a town this size. These people know the countryside, they know the in-shore waters. They’ll melt out of Ornley and the hamlets, they’ll disappear, and then start picking us off at their leisure. We’ll be forced back to the ships—if some fisher crew doesn’t manage to sneak in and burn those to the waterline as well—and we haven’t even provisioned for the trip back yet. It’s better than three weeks south to Gergis, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to do it on skewered rat and rainwater.”

“Well, now.” Shendanak made a show of examining his nails—it was pure court performance, something he must have picked up on the long climb to wealth and power back in Yhelteth. It made Egar want to crush his skull. “Getting a bit precious about our campaigning in our old age, aren’t we? Tell me, did you
really
kill that dragon back in the war? I mean, it’s just—you don’t
talk
much like a spit-blood-and-die dragon-slayer.”

Egar bared his teeth in a rictus grin. “You want a spanking, Klarn, right in front of your men? I’ll be happy to oblige. Just keep riding me.”

Again, the glint of suppressed rage in Shendanak’s eye. His jaw set, his voice came out soft and silky.

“Don’t get carried away here, Dragonbane. You’re not your faggot friend, you know. And he’s not here to back you up, either.”

Egar swore later, if it hadn’t been for that last comment, he would have let it slide.

“
ou are not being
reasonable,
daughter of Flaradnam.”

Archeth grunted, gritted her teeth, and hauled on the rope again. Below her, the Helmsman Anasharal spindled about and bumped up a couple more of the companionway steps. Its weighty iron carapace clanked dully on the wood, its underfolded limbs twitched feebly about. As ever, it looked and moved like a crippled giant crab.

And talked like an exasperated schoolmaster.

“Krinzanz has clouded your judgment.”

“Uh-huh.”

She took a turn of rope about her forearm, set her boot against the hatch frame, and leaned her weight steadily backward. She’d run the rope over the top strut of the companionway rail and then under the rail itself to create a makeshift pulley. Now the cabled hemp came slithering round the polished wood rail at really a quite promising speed. She staggered backward, semicontrolled. Anasharal came up again, a solid yard this time. Whatever krinzanz was or was not doing to her judgment, it ran in her muscles like liquid rage.

“You are going to regret this.”

“Doubt it.” Words bitten off, she was panting hard from the exertion. “This is … the
best
fucking idea … I’ve had in
months.
”

Another savage tug backward on the last word and she made three more steps across the deck, away from the hatch at a tight angle that kept the rope pulleyed around that strut. Damp gray daylight, and the cold wrap of drizzle across her face. Summer in the Hironish. If the sun was up there somewhere, you’d never have known it. The rail was beginning to warp visibly with Anasharal’s weight, but there was a krinzanz certainty in her head that said it
would
hold, if she could just … 

Knees bent almost to sitting, Archeth dropped her weight near the deck to stop her feet slipping on the rain-greased timbers. She heaved backward, felt the throb of a krin-elevated pulse in her neck as she strained. The companionway was built amidships and equidistant from either bulwark.
Sea Eagle’s Daughter
was a decent-sized ship, starboard was a good fifteen feet away, but once Anasharal was up on deck, dragging it across the wet planking would be child’s play. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d get the Helmsman up and over the bulwark—work something out once she got that far. Truth was, she hadn’t been much in the mood for careful planning when she went below with the rope.

“Daughter of Flaradnam. You cannot believe any of this is my
fault.
”

“No?”
Haul-l-l
—and suddenly the Helmsman’s carapace cleared the top of the companionway. Anasharal hung and swung there like some big, misshapen ship’s bell. A couple of its legs reached halfheartedly for purchase on the rail, but as always, the effort of motion alone seemed to defeat them. Archeth felt a vicious surge of satisfaction jolt through her at the sight. “So who dragged us the fuck up here in the first place? Whose idea was this fucking quest? Who told us we’d find a Kiriath city in the ocean up here?”

“I had no reason not to believe—”

“Or wait—what about a phantom island that comes and goes like the weather? Ring any mother-fucking bells, does it?”

“I understand that you may be disappointed, Archeth.”

“Oh, you do?” Leaning back into the tension on the rope, getting some breath back. “That’s good, then.”

She began to track an arc sideways across the deck, opening the angle on the taut rope and hauling herself back in closer, leaning steeply backward the whole way. Another couple of steps and the rope should snap free of the rail end, yanking the Helmsman over the edge of the companionway hatch and out onto the deck … 

“But what exactly do you think this will achieve?” She thought there might be the faintest trace of panic in the Helmsman’s voice now. “Do you expect me to confess some secret I’ve been keeping from you?”

“Nope.” Shortening rope, hand over hand. “I expect you to sink.”

“Daughter of Flaradnam, you
cannot
—”

“Just watch me.”

Footfalls on wood. Off to her left, where the ship’s gangplank lay lowered, a figure came hurriedly aboard. She spared a glance, saw one of Rakan’s Throne Eternal approaching. Nodded breathless acknowledgment at him and went back to hauling on the rope.

“My lady, I am sent to—”

“Not!” Through gritted teeth. “Now!”

The rope twanged free of its wrap on the rail. Anasharal tumbled to the decking, tipped over on its back with the momentum, legs flailing. Slack leapt through the rope, and Archeth went over on her arse. The Throne Eternal sprang forward.

“My lady—”

“I’m fine,”
she snarled, and the sheer force of it drove him back a step. She scrambled to her feet, gathered the rope in burning palms. Anasharal looked pretty helpless upended like that but she wouldn’t have put it past the Helmsman to somehow right itself, drag itself back to the edge of the hatch, and fall to the relative safety at the bottom of the companionway; safe because—and she suspected that Anasharal would somehow know this—she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have the focal strength to do all this a second time today, krinzanz or no krinzanz. She was in fact, already starting to feel that maybe—

“Help me,” she snapped at the confused soldier. “Don’t just stand there with your prick in your hand! Grab the rope!”

“My lady?”

But he was Throne Eternal, and she, here in this godforsaken miserable place,
was
the throne, or its closest representative at least. He was charged with obeying her to the death if need be. He did as he was told. He took up station behind her, and she felt the easing on her own scorched-palm grip as he added his strength to hers. They hauled in unison, and the upended Helmsman skated a couple of feet across the greasy timbers, rocking gently. The Throne Eternal tried again, panting somewhat now. “My lady. What is. Your intention?”

“Intention?” She twisted her head to look back at him, treated him to a gritted krinzanz grin. “Dump this fucker in the harbor, why?”

She caught the look of dismay on his face. Turned herself back to face front.

“Just pull,” she told him.

“That would be ill-advised, Selak Chan, as I’m sure you already realize. The lady Archeth has ingested—”

“You shut up!”
she screamed jaggedly.
“You shut the fuck up!”

And abruptly, as if the scream had punctured some inner chamber in the workings of her anger, she was done. She felt the precious load of her fury leaking away, turning into tears. Suddenly, her muscles were no longer on fire, they only ached. Her palms stung, her mouth tasted sour and dry; every one of her 209 years fell on her like stones.

She dropped the rope and stood there in the rain, head down.

“Shut the fuck up,” she murmured to herself.

“My lady? Are you hale, my lady?”

Archeth shook herself like a wet dog. She turned to face the man properly for the first time since he’d come aboard.

“What do you want?”

“It’s the Dragonbane, my lady. And Shendanak’s men. Well, and my lord Tand as well. There’s been fighting. At the inn on League street. Commander Rakan requests your presence.”

“Wait,
fighting?
Who’s fighting, who—” She drew a breath deep enough to shake her whole body. “All right, never mind. Go back, tell them I’m on my way.”

“Yes, my lady.” Relief flooded the young face. He saluted, fist to heart, turned and hurried away. She watched him cross the gangplank and head off into the drizzle. She wiped some of the rain off her face.

Fighting.

Just what we needed.

Better get strapped, then.

“Not one fucking word,” she told the Helmsman as she passed its upended carapace on her way to her cabin and her knives.

For once, Anasharal was silent.

T
HEY HAD
S
HENDANAK LAID OUT ON THE BED IN HIS ROOMS.
G
RIM-FACED
Majak cousins lined the narrow corridor outside and took up space on the stairs, bulky and damp-smelling in their felt coats and boots. Shouldering her way up past them, Archeth caught impassive stares and muttered snatches of conversation in the steppe tongue. Covert warding gestures forked in her direction, hands touched to talisman purses. Here and there, she saw the glint of a knife being used—for now—to pick at nails or teeth.

There was an ugly, purposeful quiet to it all, and it kicked her straight back to the war. Armed men, waiting for violence to ensue.

At the top of the stairs, one of the cousins rocked to his feet and got in her face, berating her loudly until two of his companions forced him to sit back down. She couldn’t decipher any of what he said; her understanding of the various Majak dialects was limited to a handful of Skaranak phrases Egar had taught her over the years. But she didn’t really need a translator.

She masked her misgivings, kept her hands well away from the hilts of her own knives, and rapped sharply at the door. Rakan opened for her.

“Got your message,” she said.

“I would not have disturbed you, my lady, but—”

“Skip it.” She slid through the meager gap he’d opened, let him close up again after her. Saw two brace of Throne Eternal at his back with hands on sword hilts. “That really necessary?”

Rakan’s young face was grim. “We had to break a couple of heads just to calm things down. I think if Tand’s crew hadn’t shown up when they did, it might actually have been worse. It might have come down to steel.”

“Wait a minute.” Archeth frowned. “If this wasn’t Tand and Shendanak going at it, who the fuck started the fight?”

“I did.” Egar, in from the next room, pressing a wet cloth to the right side of his head. His face was a mess, one eye bruising up, a fresh gouge on the cheek. He grinned at her. “Afternoon, Archidi.”

“Yeah.” She was in no mood. “What happened to you?”

The Dragonbane lowered the cloth and peered into its bloodstained folds. “Bit my ear,” he said apologetically. “Still bleeding a bit, look. I kind of lost it when he did that. Wouldn’t have hurt him nearly as bad otherwise.”

“
You
were fighting with Shendanak? What the fuck for?”

“Basically?” Egar shrugged. “Because he’s a fat imperial fuck who’s forgotten where he’s from, and he needed a good spanking to help him remember.”

The Throne Eternal bristled. Archeth closed her eyes. “Great. Where is he?”

“In here.”

Shendanak lay on the big four-poster bed, belly up, unconscious. He’d been stripped down to a loincloth and Archeth thought the impression was rather like a butchered whale she’d once seen landed at the docks in Trelayne. One arm was splinted, the head was bandaged with windings through which blood had already soaked. The face was a torn-up mess—broken nose, both eyes blackened, the jaw looked lopsided with bruising, might be dislocated … 

She gave up trying to assess. Salbak Barla, ship’s doctor from
The Pride of Yhelteth,
was bent over Shendanak with a poultice. He nodded absently at her.

“My lady.”

“How is he, Doctor?”

Barla sucked in air through his teeth. “Well, he’ll live. Your barbarian friend here was restrained enough for that. But it may be awhile before he walks anywhere unaided. He’s taken a lot of heavy blows to the skull. One knee is badly bruised, the joint may be cracked. Severe bruising to the groin as well. Ribs broken in numerous places. The arm”—a gesture—“as you see.”

“Yeah, that was when he did the ear.” Egar, behind her, voice still apologetic. “Like I said, I just lost it.”

“You certainly did,” agreed Barla.

Archeth held down the edges of a krinzanz rage. She turned to face the Dragonbane, who’d gone to stand at the window.

“So what was the plan, Eg?” she asked mildly. “I mean, I assume you had one.”

He would not look at her. Stared out at the rain instead. “I already told you, I lost my temper. But that fat fuck and Tand have both got their men out there beating up the locals for information they don’t have. Something you’d know about, if you got off the boat occasionally.”

“Don’t you fucking try to make this my fault.”

He spun from the window. “Archeth, they are
betting
on who gouges some information out of these poor bastards first. Someone had to put a stop to it.”

“Yeah—that’s what Rakan and Hald are here for.”

“Hald went with Gil. And anyway, I didn’t need any help.”

Breathe, Archidi. Keep it together.

“And what’s going to happen now, Eg? Who’s going to keep Shendanak’s steppe cousins in line now he’s not awake to do it?”

“I will.”

“
You
will?” Disbelieving. “Eg, the mood they’re in on the stairs, I’m surprised they haven’t broken in here and lynched you already.”

He gave her a grim smile. “Not the way it works, Archidi. Those kids are pure steppe. I can handle them just fine.”

“The two down in the stable were handled well enough,” said Barla, without turning from his work with the poultice.