The Cold Commands

by Richard K. Morgan

  Memory arose—a couple of decades back at least, he’d have been barely fifteen. Chilly star-filled night on the steppe, the band like a vast burnished scimitar blade, raised across the sky—watching with the other herdboys as Olgan the shaman muttered and made passes in the air, cast powders and fluids onto the flames and conjured weird, wailing half-human faces there.

  The fear gripped him then as it gripped them all, possibly even old Olgan himself—the young Egar saw how the old man’s teeth were gritted tight around his invocations. But as the discordant cries and the strength of the blaze grew higher, when it seemed the faces in the fire would be pretty soon reaching out for him with claws of flame, Olgan suddenly stopped his chanting and told them to step back, look away, and seek the Sky Road with their gaze.

  To place their souls on that road.

  It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his young life—like looking away from a coiled and rattling snake you’d just stumbled on in the steppe grass—but he did it. He put his back to the yowling things in the fire. He stared up at the band, found its curving edge and imagined himself poised on that edge, looking down on the wide windy world below.

  The fear puddled out of him like water from a dropped flask.

  He heard Olgan’s voice behind him.

  What you feel is not yours. You need not own it. Creatures like these breed the fear in you as we fatten a buffalo calf, and with similar intent.

  Screeching from the fire—he thought he heard outrage in the half-formed sounds.

  Choose your feelings as you would a weapon. This is what it is to be Majak.

  Later, Olgan would teach them to bellow back at the creatures in the flames, to laugh and hurl obscenities at them, to stamp and punch into the fire. To lose themselves finally in the berserker state, where nothing mattered but the will to do harm.

  This is what it is to be Majak.

  They hit the bottom of the stairs, sprinted flat-out. Howling echoed through the hollow environs of the temple behind them. Through slanting falls of bandlight, past the towering, forgotten gods. The statue of defanged Urann seemed to meet his eyes for a moment as they raced toward it. Blank stone gaze—no help there at all. At his side, the girl tripped and nearly went headlong. He clamped tight on her wrist, held her up with sheer force, dragged her back to her feet without stopping. On through the gloom. The howls seemed to have found one another somewhere back there. He felt the dwenda presence on the nape of his neck like a taloned hand, poised to grab. He knew, he knew, they could not be that close, but still he had to fight the urge to look back.

  Not his fear.

  He shook it off.

  “There it is!” Harath, almost yelping with relief.

  And the rope—dangling straight in the diffuse rays of bandlight that streamed down from the hole at the top. Relief slammed through him. No sign of guards, human or otherwise. They piled to a halt and Egar let go of the girl’s hand, took the staff lance two-handed again.

  “Can you climb that?” he asked her.

  And saw the answer in her face. Not really, no. But she made the attempt anyway, clung and hauled for all she was worth. Barely got head height above the ground before she started to slip. Soft hands, and softened muscles—the old harem curse. Her head drooped, her panting built up and then turned to tears. Harath snorted, derisive.

  And more rolling howls through the gloom.

  Egar shook the rope impatiently. She slid down but clung on, keening. Barely audible words through the sound. Don’t, don’t leave me …

  “Stupid fucking bitch …”

  “Shut up! Give me your lance, get up that fucking rope! We’ll haul her up.”

  “Man, we don’t have the—”

  “Just fucking do it, will you!”

  Angry clatter as Harath tossed the lance aside. He leapt to the rope and went up it in savage bursts, teeth gritted and muttering. As soon as he was clear, Egar dropped his own lance, looped a broad noose into the bottom end of the rope, tugged the knot tight, and slid it over the weeping girl’s shoulders.

  “Sit in—calm down. I’m not going to leave you—sit in this. Hold the sides.” He got the loop settled under her arse, so she sat on it like a swing. “When he starts pulling you up, just hang on. Got it?”

  She nodded, wide-eyed, face streaked grubby with snot and tears.

  “Ready!” Harath bawled from above, voice tight with anger he still hadn’t worked out on the climb. Egar grinned. He’d go far, this one.

  “Okay, girl, that’s it. Hold on tight.” He tipped his head back. “Pull! Pull like you were born a fucking Skaranak, not some city-dwelling Ishlinak bitch!”

  The rope jerked upward, a solid yard. Jerked again. The girl looking down at him past her dangling, naked feet. Wide eyes.

  Wide eyes, staring.

  He grabbed up his lance and whipped around, saw them, prowling out of the gloom like beasts. Glint of blue along the edges of their weapons, but aside from that they were wholly dark. The same blunt helmets, the same leather gear. One carried a delicately made long-hafted ax, the other a sword. And they warbled softly to each other as they drew closer.

  “Help you cunts with something?” he barked.

  And twirled his staff lance through a couple of basic blocks, so the blades at either end whooped softly in the dark air.

  “Want to fuck off now, before I kill you both?”

  They came on, silent now, intent. He hefted the lance.

  “Your loss!”

  He struck hard at the dwenda on the left, lance blade jabbing up and faceward. The creature fell back a step, swung its ax to guard. Slice at the other one, and spring back. Whatever you do, Dragonbane, don’t let them get either side of you. The staff lance gave him reach, could in theory win a bracketed fight like this, but he’d seen the dwenda in action at Ennishmin, knew how fast they could be, and if these two knew what they were doing—

  In came the swordsman. Weird hooting howl, and the flickering lash of the blade. Egar went low, looped the attack away, felt the ax strike coming at his back in the hairs on the nape of his neck. He sawed upward behind him, didn’t need to look back to know he’d broken that attack, too. He sensed the dwenda stagger wide, heard it make a furious cat-like hissing.

  A combat smile touched the corners of his mouth. The berserker fury stirring now, on the straw-strewn cage floor of his mind.

  They circled him, and he stood and watched, turning the minimum he needed to keep them both in view. The lance slanted loosely through his two-handed quarterstaff grip. It was the familiar feel of an old lover under his hands. He was the windmill fulcrum at the heart of the world as it turned, the spindle of a promised and rising rage.

  His lips parted over a clenched grin.

  “Come on, then. Come on!”

  At the edge of his vision, the axman rushed in. Nicely done, it only just missed his blind spot. He jabbed down, hoping to skewer a foot, at a minimum trip the fucker up. Keep the other end of the staff high because—

  Skirling shriek, as the other dwenda came leaping at him, above head height.

  He’d seen them do this before, too. Still, the scream and the shadowy figure seemingly in flight sent a spiked chill through his heart. He struck upward, lance blade almost vertical. The sword edge went whistling past, way off. But hard on its heels came a black-booted foot, and it caught him a crack across the side of the head. He stumbled. Head full of stars. Felt the axman rush him again and must swing to counter.

  “Skaranak! It’s down!”

  But there was a weird moaning on his lips now as he blocked with the lance, locked up the ax, and shoved back. The human shout seemed to come from another chamber, somewhere distant under the temple roof, and didn’t make much sense anyway.

  “Eh?” he found he was snarling at the thing he faced. “Eh?”

  Time froze. The ax haft and lance shaft skittered back and forth against each other. He reckoned he had forty pounds on the dwenda, but it was still driving him back.
And the other one would be on him any fucking second …

  He jolted downward, sharply, ran the lance shaft savagely down and onto one of the hands holding the ax. The dwenda shrilled and gave an inch of ground. Egar whooped and pivoted off the shift it gave him, swung all his weight into the shove. The dwenda staggered sideways, nearly went down. A shadow shifted, off his other shoulder. But now the moan on Egar’s lips was swelling to something else, something summoned. He could feel his own pulse, thundering through his ears, under his collarbones like the tremble of the ground at An-Monal. He swung to face the new threat, jerked the lower lance blade back to hamstring his stumbling opponent. Felt it slice something, heard the shriek of damage done, and howled his response at the ceiling.

  “Egar! Let’s go!”

  No time, no fucking time! The sword tip came slicing—close as his last shave, he’d later swear, as he rolled his neck out of the way. And the second dwenda, there behind the blade like some flickering demon out of fevered dreams. He struck out, felt himself sliding into the berserker gap, gave voice now to the full, ululating cry. Vaguely, he felt the dwenda sword tag him across one thigh—sudden heat, there and gone. It didn’t matter, Harath, the girl, some vague wisp of thought about a rope, nothing mattered now, he could fucking die here for all it mattered, so long as he gutted these two first—

  He struck out again. Blade clash, blue sparking fire. Howl!

  The axman was back in the fight, limping but still fast. It didn’t matter. He wove the staff lance before him, strode in, took some blow or other across the shoulder, howl, howl, howl, wheel and whoop and strike—

  The dwenda, bracketing him now …

  “Egar!” Harath’s whiny fucking Ishlinak pussy scream …

  Didn’t matter, didn’t fucking—

  Ax blow. Lick of sword. He drank it in, waded through it. Whirled and struck. Somewhere he was bleeding but wasn’t that the whole fucking point—

  Something changed.

  Like a tumble into chilly water, like the breath of a ghost. Something crashed down from the ceiling. He caught a fragmented glimpse—huge block of shaped stone plummeting, one of the Urann statue’s sculpted hands. It split and shattered on impact with the dusty ground.

  The dwenda recoiled.

  Both of them, like cats hit with scalding water. For all the block hadn’t fallen anywhere near them. But the air, the air was ice, and—

  “The rope, Egar! Grab the fucking rope!”

  And there was life again, like a door to a lighted room swinging closed at the end of a corridor. He saw the gentle pendulum sweep of the rope end, six yards off his left shoulder. Hurled the staff lance at the nearest dwenda and sprinted for it, flat-out.

  “Come on, for Urann’s sake!”

  He grabbed the rope end, hauled himself up. Sag of the fight aftermath through his guts like sudden sickness. Numbness in his thigh. Climb, you stupid bastard, climb! He went up with the speed of long custom, hand over hand, spindling and swinging about with the momentum of his grab. Caught sliced, dizzying glimpses of what was below him—the dwenda, still down there, blunt-helmeted heads tilted up at him—soft puff of white-stone dust, drifting up in the gloom where the masonry had fallen—freshly shattered chunks of stone—more figures moving in the deeper gloom behind—harsh, unhuman chuckling …

  Climb! Climb!

  He reached the ragged break in the roof, panting and snorting like an old horse pushed too hard. Vaguely aware of wounds, and the slow seeping realization of how close he’d come. Hands grabbed him, dragged him clear of the hole. He rolled over on the cool stone, looked up at the starry sky and the white speckling slash of the band. Blinking out the last red edges of the berserker rage. Jangling like a set of jailer’s keys.

  The girl’s face craned over, blocked out some sky, peered down at him. Pretty face, he registered vaguely.

  “Fucking Dragonbane is it?” Harath, spitting furious, coiling the rope. “Get yourself killed for a fucking slave? What’s the matter, you think Ast’naha’s already carting your ale to Urann’s feast in Sky Home? You hear any fucking thunder up there, old-timer? Come on, get up! Move! We’re not out of this yet.”

  Egar gave himself one more breath lying down. Draw and hold, release. Rolled to his feet and peered around.

  They were alone on the roof. No sign of alarms raised, either up here or beyond. The trailing caress of a breeze—he caught the wafting, damp smell of the river on it, the flowering weeds along the banks. Spotted the faint white broken glimmer of bandlight across water, and the red-yellow stain of the city’s lights on the sky to the west.

  The cool, dark calm of everything around him—dislocating shock after the fight below.

  “All right,” he said, not quite steadily. “Let’s go see if our ride’s there.”

  THEY GOT DOWN THE SIDE WALL WITHOUT INCIDENT, LOWERED THE girl first in the sling, secured the rope at the top and slid rapidly down after her. No time to fuck about, and no gloves—so add scorched palms to the damage tally for the night. They stood, braced either side of the girl for a couple of moments, knives out. But there was no sign of the night patrol.

  “All inside by now,” Harath guessed. “Turning the place upside down, see what the fuck just went down.”

  Egar nodded, wordless—still breathy from all the exertion. Still working out what the fuck went down himself. Harath tapped at the dangling rope with his knife tip, instinctive herdsman’s thrift in face and tone. “Hate to leave that hanging there, you know.”

  “I’ll buy you a new one. Come on.”

  They skulked away from the silent, darkened bulk of the temple and down to the river, Egar with a small survivor’s grin now hanging crookedly off his mouth by one corner. He found he had time for sudden carnal recollection, what the girl’s arse had looked like, going up with that rope slung under it. Stir in his groin at the thought, but oddly it was Imrana’s face that he saw.

  Sort that out if you could.

  The boatman was waiting in midriver, just where he’d dropped them before. Harath whistled sharply, stood up and windmilled his arms. It took a moment or two, but finally the man bent to haul in his anchor, paddled the boat about with his oars so it was facing them, and dug in on the stroke.

  They went down through weeds and yielding mud, waded out to meet him.

  “Not safe coming in like this,” he greeted them reprovingly. “There’s been a lot of commotion up there the last little while.”

  “Yeah, tell us about it.” Egar hooked an elbow around the prow of the boat to hold it steady, shoveled the girl aboard with his other arm.

  “And an extra passenger? Well, that will be … extra, of course.”

  Harath heaved himself up over the side with a grunt. “One more word out of you, I’ll slit your fucking throat and row home myself.”

  “Then you would be cursed,” said the boatman evenly. “And the unholy maraghan this place is named after would creep from the waters to avenge me, to track and drag and drown you and all your kin.”

  Harath barked a laugh. “They’d have a long walk for my kin.”

  “No one’s slitting anybody’s throat.” Egar got himself into the boat with an effort. The wound in his thigh was beginning to throb. “And we’re not paying extra for her, either, so settle down and row. Plus, they told me the maraghan were all driven out of this place centuries ago. Cleansed by the Revelation’s sacred word and fire, right?”

  The boatman fiddled sulkily with his oars.

  “They have been sighted in the river still,” he muttered. “And along the coast. They have an affinity with those who ply the water for their trade. They can be called upon.”

  Egar grinned. “And there I was thinking you were a devout son of the Revelation. Bet you’re wearing an amulet under that shirt and everything.”

  “What the fuck is a maraghan anyway?” Harath wanted to know.

  “Sea demons,” Egar told him absently, squeezing some of the water out of his breeches. His hands came aw
ay bloody. “Like a waterhole lurker, but they’re always female. Supposed to sing to sailors sometimes, lure them out of the boat.”

  The Ishlinak peered dubiously over the side. The boat was coasting on the current now, turning idly as it drifted downstream.

  “Doesn’t sound like much to worry about. I had an uncle once, half Voronak, said he fucked a waterhole witch. Caught her on his line, dragged her up through a hole in the ice, and did her right there on the bank.”

  “Yeah? Sounds to me like he fucked a fish.” Egar found the wound in his thigh and pressed experimentally at its sides. Grimaced. Shallow, and really fucking painful. “Then again, if he’s anything like the Voronak I know, that doesn’t surprise me at all.”

  Harath coughed a laugh. Stopped it up abruptly, and gave the boatman an unfriendly stare. Switched back to Tethanne. “What are you looking at? You going to pull on those fucking oars, or what?”

  “Yeah, come on, man.” Egar nodded at the boat’s lazy, swirling motion. “We’re not paying for the current to take us home. I can swim downstream faster than this.”

  The boatman gave him a venomous look, but he bent to the oars. In the bottom of the little vessel, the girl picked herself up and crouched shivering. Her shift was drenched through, her legs were plastered with river mud.

  Harath went back to Majak. “So, Dragonbane. You going to tell me what the fuck that was we were fighting in there tonight?”

  Egar’s good humor guttered a little. He stared back upriver, to where the silent bulk of the Afa’marag temple crouched on the rise, like something that might spring after them at any moment, like something not yet unleashed.

  “Different kind of demon altogether,” he said.

  “But …” The Ishlinak gestured, at a loss. “I thought … Like you said. The invigilators. They chased all the demons and witches out with their book and incense and shit. What the fuck are they doing giving them house room?”