“I am sorry, my lord. It seems I underestimated the—”
“Oh, horseshit, Archeth!” Fists slammed down on the tabletop. Platters jumped with the force of it. Jhiral spun about, face staining dark, strode at her as if to deal her a blow. “Horse, Shit! Do you really think I’m that much of a fool? You didn’t want him caught. You thought he’d quit the city, and you wanted him to get a good head start. Well, he hasn’t quit the city, has he? Has he?”
He hung three feet away, as if tugged to a halt there on some invisible cable, glaring at her. Down at his side, the ringed fingers of his right hand twitched with suppressed violence.
On her left, Ringil moved—a fractional, indefinable shift of stance, caught in the corner of her eye, more sensed than seen. He was, she knew without needing to see it, watching Jhiral, watching that twitching, imperial hand as it struggled not to curl into a fist. He was gone with it, into the awful, gently amused detachment that presaged the steel song, the only one the Ravensfriend knew how to sing.
She felt the air thicken with implication, felt the balance in the balcony space teeter with it, and begin to tip. If Jhiral made that fist and raised it …
Gil would kill him—she knew it as clearly as if it was already done.
She raised her arms, open admission of guilt, and her left arm hanging just a moment longer than the right, blocking out Ringil and the Ravensfriend’s flow. She hoped it would be enough. She bowed her head to her Emperor.
“You are correct, my lord. The fault here is mine.”
“It most certainly fucking is, Archeth.” A rancid satisfaction in his face and tone, there and just as quickly bleeding away. He cleared his throat, gestured carefully with the hand that had so recently longed toward a fist. “Well, then. No point dwelling on your manifest failings in this, I suppose. It’s left to me, once more, to make the difficult decisions and do the right thing. The King’s Reach are out, Archeth. It’s done. I signed the order an hour ago. They will bring this Dragonbane down, dead or alive, and justice will be done. In the—”
“My lord, if I—”
“In, the, meantime, my lady.” He waited to see if she would dare interrupt again, saw she would not, and went on in brisker tones. “The Reach commander will want to interview you for clues as to their quarry’s habits and haunts. Your northern friend here, too, I imagine. Rakan?”
Noyal Rakan jumped. “My lord?”
“Convey the Lady kir-Archeth and her noble companion to the King’s Reach barracks wing, with all haste. Taran Alman is waiting for them there.”
“Yes, my lord. At once.”
They turned to go. Archeth at speed, to hide what was in her eyes and the seething urge to speak what boiled behind her gritted teeth. Ringil took a little longer, and his gaze measured the Emperor with speculative calm.
Jhiral saw the look and bristled. “Was there something you wanted to say to me, Ringil Eskiath? Some suit or request, perhaps?”
“No.” Ringil did not move. “None. I believe Your Imperial Shininess has said everything worth saying here. It falls now only to execution.”
Jhiral laughed, but there was an uncertain rising tremor at the edge of it that he could not disguise. Archeth and Rakan both heard it, and both stopped dead in their tracks. The Throne Eternal honor guard heard it, and grew intent.
Ringil spared their stirring a flickered glance, a swift calculation, then he fixed Jhiral again with his gaze.
“Have I amused Your Shininess in some way?”
Jhiral cleared his throat, turned a little to his slaves and soldiers, playing for the gallery. “Well, your facility with our tongue is to be commended, my lord. Quite remarkable in a northerner, truly. But it seems your range in Tethanne is somewhat limited after all. You mean Radiance.”
“Do I?” said Ringil tonelessly.
He held the Emperor’s eye a moment longer, as if fixing the imperial countenance in some special place of memory. His lips twisted in a smile as thin as the scar across his cheek. He nodded as if told something by a voice that others could not hear.
Then he turned and walked away.
“SO THAT’S WHAT YOU’VE BEEN DOING FOR A LIVING THE LAST TEN years, is it?”
“If you mean serving the Burnished Throne and its people to the best of my ability,” hissed Archeth, “then yes, it is. I saw it as somehow more productive than hiding in a mountain backwater, spinning yarns about my heroic exploits for pocket money, and paying the stable boys to fuck me.”
“Well, some of us can’t afford slaves for that particular purpose.”
“Fuck you, Gil!”
Jagged loss of control on her accented Naomic, and a yell that had to carry. They’d jammed to an abrupt halt in the midst of the gardens, barely out of earshot of the balcony and the imperial party, and almost nose-to-nose. Rakan stood by, unable to follow the sudden switch to a foreign tongue, but needing little insight to understand the tone. Ringil sneering now, hungover ill temper flaring, opening his mouth to—
Behind him, something gusted past, keening.
He felt its touch distinctly, like cool fingers on the nape of his neck. He frowned, forgot what he was going to say.
A single leaf spiraled down from above, caught in a blade of sunlight lancing through the trees. He watched it fall, bemused. Sparse morning light gleamed farther off in the foliage, but it seemed cold and distant. Here, around him, the air was shadowy and cool, and something …
Something was not right.
“If they kill the Dragonbane,” he said, more quietly. “I will put this palace to the torch. You know I will.”
“Yeah,” Archeth snapped, apparently untouched by the cool shift around them. “You and whose army? The war is over, Gil. This isn’t Gallows Gap.”
“No. It isn’t as clean.”
“Oh, give me a fucking break.” She raised spread palms, struck them to her forehead, a gesture so purely Kiriath, so purely her father, that for a moment he saw Flaradnam’s features stamped across hers in the act. “This is civilization, Gil. You know, the thing we were fighting to save? You—you and Egar both—you can’t just stalk about, steel in hand, murdering your grievances.”
“That’s right. These days, that’s reserved for the likes of that little prick back there and his cabal. Civilization. Privileges of rank.”
“You had rank, Gil. You threw it away.”
“Yeah. And you clung to yours.”
Her eyes widened. She drew back, as if a jagged chasm had opened up through the paving between them.
“My lady,” Rakan interjected. He looked at Ringil, wet his lips. “My lord. Taran Alman is waiting. The Emperor’s will is clear. We should not delay.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Ringil nodded, switched to Tethanne. “He’s right, Archeth. You’d better not keep the Reach waiting.”
“We, Gil.” Urgently, because she could see what was in his eyes. “We had better not keep them waiting.”
But he was already moving. Past Rakan with a glance that said all he needed to—the Throne Eternal captain lowered his head and gave him ground. Away from Archeth’s desperate voice, calling him back.
“Gil! Gil, you can’t just—”
“Tell them everything you can dredge up,” he told her, not bothering to use Naomic, not bothering to turn. “The more, the better. Keep them talking.”
“I can’t just let you go,” she shouted.
“You can’t stop me.” His voice trailed back to her, oddly faded amid the greenery and growth. “Grashgal and your father saw to that. You know what they wrote on this blade.”
He turned a corner, and was gone.
The morning light seemed to strengthen in his absence.
CHAPTER 36
rackle of embers, bathed in wavering orange glow.
Go easy, Dragonbane. Don’t drown yourself this time. You’re not safe here.
Egar glowered down into the pipe bowl, let the dark smoke come barreling aboard with its icy-cool cargo of
release. He coughed a little with the depth of his draw. Clung to a fading caution for a moment, then let it go.
Not safe anywhere in this fucking city. Isn’t it about time you did the smart thing and just got out of town?
It was, he had to admit, looking that way.
Yeah, but for now …
He’d made for the same pipe house with cold calculation. Close to recent events, but that might work to his advantage—his enemies were almost certainly looking for him farther downriver. He had some sense of the local streets, too, which would count in a pinch. And they knew him here—just another smelly, derelict veteran in search of cheap oblivion. Nothing to talk about. Go somewhere else, there was no telling if he’d raise a ripple—the chatter-worthy wake of a new vessel through new waters.
It seemed like sense, but he was too shattered to be sure. And his strategic judgment, well, the less said about that the better right now, Dragonbane.
But he could still not quite believe how badly things had come unraveled, and with how much violent speed. Could still not believe the way it had gone down, even as he watched the events dance in iridescent memory—collide and coalesce, behind eyelids lowering closed under the cool weight of the flandrijn, rushing in …
THE LIZARD’S HEAD, GAY AND GARISH WITH LANTERN LIGHT, RAUCOUS bursts of laughter flung out of open windows like the contents of chamber pots. The head itself glistened wetly in its raised iron cage, faint, bandlit silver shifting to brighter, lamplit gold each time the tavern door banged open on the serving wenches and the heavily laden trays they carried. The trestles set outside were full, all seats taken by bulky figures upending tankards and bottles, either in moody isolation or with roars of approval and an eerie kind of unison that resembled a drill. The ground around was littered with discarded edged weapons and packs, and, even this early, the bonelessly slack forms of a couple of unseasoned drinkers who’d overdone it. The tavern had drawn its usual bag of variegated fighting muscle. Eg spotted half a dozen different regimental rigs in the crowd, sown in among the more common black or oatmeal-colored cloaks of uncommissioned freebooters.
The Black Folk Span bulked stark against the stars above, broke the shimmering arc of the band where it dipped earthward.
Egar limped closer, keeping warily back from the light of the hung lanterns and tabletop oil lamps—just another shambling drinker in the gloom. He scanned the lit faces as he moved from trestle to trestle, searching for Harath, listening for the younger man’s raised, excited tones. With luck, he’d find the Ishlinak out here, wouldn’t even have to duck inside the confines of the tavern itself. A quick word and—
“Eg? Fucking Egar?”
And of course, like a fool, he lurched around, into the light, at the sound of that familiar voice. Saw Darhan, now on his feet, staring and clearly pretty drunk.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Dragonspanker?” he rasped in Majak. “Don’t you know the City Guard are out after your carcass?”
Heads turning at the trestle behind him.
Egar lurched closer, grabbed the older man by the shoulder and faked a long-lost-cousin embrace. Into Darhan’s ear, he muttered, “Keep your fucking voice down, will you? Yeah, I know. I’m dealing with it.”
He stood back and clapped the trainer on both shoulders, faked a delighted oath and a vague gesture across the river. Then he steered the other man away from his drinking companions, toward the gloom and quiet down by the water’s edge.
“Seriously, Eg.” Darhan, now sobering up with veteran speed. “They got a reward posted and everything. Twenty thousand elementals. Twenty, thousand. You need to get the fuck out of town, man, while you still can.”
“I’m working on that. But I got loose ends.”
“Yeah? Like what?” Darhan spun on him, grabbed him in echo of the two-shoulder clasp Egar had just used. “Look in my face, Eg. Did you hear what I just said? Twenty, thousand, elementals. I’d hamstring you and turn you in myself for half that much.”
Locked gazes. Egar’s hand strayed to his knife hilt, he couldn’t help it.
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said tautly.
Darhan flung up his arms, exasperated. “All right, all right, I wouldn’t. But that makes me the single man in this city you can trust right now, and I’m telling you, if they try to draft me for Demlarashan this winter, I won’t even be that. It’s more money than any of us are going to see in a lifetime, Eg.” His anger took a sudden gust upward. “Twenty thousand cold, clinking elementals against one man’s life. Just think about that. It’s retirement in style, it’s a villa upriver, a kitchen full of slaves and a tidy little harem wing, cuties out of Trelayne or Shenshenath on tap. It’s that happy fucking ending none of us are ever going to see, Eg. Just like some bullshit kid’s fairy tale. Now what the fuck loose end is worth running against that kind of bounty? And don’t you be telling me it’s a woman.”
“It’s not.” Egar blew a weary sigh. “Look, there’s this kid. Ishlinak, not long in the city. Big, stroppy mouth on him and no more smarts than a six-week calf. He’s in this, and if I don’t get word to him, he’s going to get taken for question.”
Darhan gave him a narrow look. “Ishlinak?”
“Yeah. Dumb as fuck, but aren’t you all. But he’s a nice enough kid for his age, might even make something of himself if he stays alive long enough. Reminds me of …” He gestured. “Yeah, well. Like I said. He’s in this, and that’s on me.”
“So what’s his name?”
“Harath.” Eg blinked. “Why?”
Darhan shrugged. “No mention of him on the bounty sheet. It’s just you. Pretty good likeness, too, except for the hair. Smart move, blacking it up like that. But it isn’t going to keep you safe for long. The Guard are a lot smarter than they used to be in our day.”
“Can you help me out, then? Carry a message?”
Darhan dug at the sparse turf underfoot with the toe of one boot. “Yeah, guess I can do that much. Is he in there now?”
“I don’t know. I was going to look.”
The older man shook his grizzled head. “You really are something else, Eg.”
“Yeah, well. Share hearth and heart’s truth, right?”
“Sure. But just look over there, Eg.” Darhan gestured broadly at the tavern and its lamplit environs, the strewn mob of men whose life was killing others just like them. “I mean, just look at them. Most of them, they’d sell their own mothers for a tenth that much.”
Egar stared at the dim, flicker-lit figures. “I know. But that doesn’t—”
The blow floored him. Dropped him to his hands and knees. Roaring, whirling in his ears, as he struggled not to go all the way down. A boot lashed in, struck with precision at the base of his ribs, lifted him with its force, killed his lungs. He went all the way down. The boot dug in under his shoulder, shoved him over, onto his back.
Darhan stood over him.
“Guess what, Eg,” he said flatly. “They drafted me for Demlarashan this winter.”
Egar made creaking, wheezing noises. Blood in his mouth, he’d clipped his tongue with his teeth when Darhan hit him in the head. Tears in his eyes. He spat with slack lack of force, not much more than a belch of bloodied spittle that hung out the side of his mouth and down his chin. He clawed after breath. He tried to reach his knife.
“Uh-uh.” Darhan trod on his hand. Knelt and pinned the Dragonbane’s arm beneath his knee, found the weapon under the clothes. “Saw you twitch after this baby before. Thought you’d rumbled me then.”
He tugged the knife from its sheath, tossed it into the river. Egar heard the tiny, going-away splash it made.
“Faithless,” he managed through hoarse wheezing, “cunt.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Darhan frisked him with professional speed, turned up the other two knives, and threw them after their brother. “You talk when you’re closing on sixty and it’s back to Demlarashan or lose your commission. Fucking pointless war. I’m not dying down there for eight bucks a day and camp
aign rations. Not anymore.”
He stood and cupped hands to mouth. “Hoy! Guard! Guard sergeant! Got your fugitive for you! Right here! Guard!”
Commotion at the trestles. Figures rising to their feet and peering. Voices back and forth in the evening air. The door of the tavern flung back, yellowish lanternlight spilling out. More bulky figures silhouetted there. Darhan gestured.
“They were in there all the time, Eg. Six-man squad, doing the rounds. Anybody seen this face, there’s a reward. You’d walked on in there like you planned, they would have gotten you just the same. Except I’d be out twenty grand. Hoy, you lot! Back the fuck off! My prisoner, my bounty.”
This to the rough, bunched-up crescent of freebooters already coalescing around them. Darhan stood forward, blocked them from Egar’s crumpled form. There was a taut grin on his face, and his hand rested on the hilt of his own short-sword where it hung at his waist.
“You heard me! Back the fuck up, the lot of you. Job’s done, no help needed. My prisoner. Now will somebody go and drag the Guard off their on-the-house arses and get them out here.”
“They’re coming,” said someone at the back of the press.
They were, too—six lean, hard-looking men who, if they had been cadging free drink in the tavern, showed remarkably little sign of it in stance or stare. They were not what Egar had expected at all. Not a saddlebag belly among them, and they carried their day-clubs with the relaxed ease of fighters, not bullies. A couple of them carried torches, too. They shouldered their blunt way through the crowd and stood looking down at Egar. The squad captain jutted his chin.
“Who you got there, then?”
Darhan stood theatrically aside for them. “That is Egar the Dragonbane, in all his outlaw glory. Murderer of Saril Ashant. Mark me up for the reward.”
One of the Guardsmen guffawed. “Yeah, right!”
Laughter laced through the crowd. They weren’t buying it, either. Egar, still trying to get breath back into his lungs and wipe the drooled filth from his chin, couldn’t really blame them.
The Cold Commands Page 42
