The Cold Commands alffh-2

by Richard Morgan

  Ringil didn t switch his gaze, didn t need to. He kept his tone cold but mannered, dropped back into Tethanne. That need not concern you, my lord Kaptal.

  That s where you re wrong, my northern friend. This not from Yilmar Kaptal himself, but another, less heavily jowled individual seated at his side. Menith Tand leaned his spare, gray-maned countenance forward and made an inclusive gesture around the table. Whatever is said in this room concerns us all. We are here, all of us, in good faith, to underwrite a venture of imperial charter. No one said anything about partisan allegiances or League mercenaries.

  Shendanak snorted. Fucking partisan, is it? Fucking prick.

  I m a little surprised to see you uncomfortable with League mercenary involvement, my lord Tand. Ringil took a couple more steps into the room. Made the space his own, as if the Ravensfriend still hung on his back. Do you not hire such men in great numbers to bring your slaves down from the north?

  Tand grinned mirthlessly back. Yes. And many of them with accents and Tethanne far worse than yours. But they all answer to me for their coin. Who do you answer to, my friend?

  Archeth cleared her throat. Gentlemen and lady, may I present to you his lordship Ringil of the Glades House Eskiath in Trelayne, once ranked knight commander in the alliance armies and decorated hero of the victory at Gallows Gap.

  Low muttering around the table, like the scurry of rats. Ringil saw Noyal Rakan stiffen and murmur something to his aide. Elsewhere, in querying tones, he caught the words hero, dragon, and faggot in about equal measure.

  Well, fame took some unpredictable postures when you fucked him. And he was a fickle boy at best.

  That s who he is, kir -Archeth, Tand said laconically. I asked who he answers to.

  Archeth gave him a blank look, and paced a couple of moments before she spoke. My lord Ringil has agreed to act as guide and captain for the expedition north. His contract, then, is with me, and with the imperial charter. Does that suffice?

  Across the table from Tand and Kaptal, Nethena Gral wrinkled her famously smooth, pale brow a couple of court poets, Ringil was told, had made allusion to it and gestured irritably at Noyal Rakan.

  It was my understanding, my lady Archeth, that the Throne Eternal had command of this expedition, and were, so to speak, the Emperor s blessing and protecting hand in the venture. Is this then no longer the case?

  Ringil raised a hand to his jaw, made a seemingly innocuous stroking gesture with it. The agreed signal. On his flank, he felt Archeth subside as she saw it.

  Honored lady Gral, he said. The Emperor s blessing here in Yhelteth is no doubt a wondrous bounty, to be sought by any wise citizen. North and west of Tlanmar, however, and paired with a League florin, it will buy you a florin s worth of salt.

  A taut silence stretched behind the words. Ringil kept half an eye on Captain Noyal Rakan, saw the aide bristle with affront, but Rakan himself stay quiet and watchful.

  Down the table, someone cleared a throat.

  Some, said Yilmar Kaptal carefully. Would call that an insult to the majesty of the Burnished Throne.

  Ringil shrugged. Some would call it truth.

  More quiet. What gazes were not fixed on Ringil darted around the room, meeting one another, querying, seeking alliance, shying away again.

  Then, abruptly, Menith Tand chuckled.

  He s completely right, of course. The slaver looked around at the assembled company. Isn t he? Come on, maybe not all of you have been up there, but who here hasn t read the court records on the northwestern march? He s completely right, and what s more we all know it, and we re all sitting here thinking it. So

  He clapped his hands on the word, once, sharply. Rubbed them briskly together. shall we just welcome our new captain and war hero, as his rank and exploits dictate, and then get to some serious planning? Because I for one grow bored with this constant measuring of male members in place of intelligent debate.

  It would take longer than that, of course. he'd sown the seeds, but the crop would be a while in sprouting.

  Imperial summons had brought them all to the first meeting, curiosity and the promise of potential wealth kept them attached, as did an unwillingness to be the first to jump ship in case a hated rival should stay, and garner fame and fortune in their absence. It was a powerful binding force in a group so fractious, but it was unstable and unreliable in the longer term. About as safe as the winds around the Gergis cape was Shanta s sour opinion. Could die out from under us at any minute, leave us becalmed and going nowhere. Or turn about and fling us on the rocks before we even get a start. Needs a very cool hand on the helm.

  Well, he d made a start. Form an outsider bond with Shendanak, but keep it wrapped and opaque beneath the language gap. Throw a line to Tand with his well-traveled merchant sophistication and connection to the League territories. But keep a vague menace about it all. Neutralize the rivalry between the two men by the simple expedient of giving them Gil to worry about instead. Then dare the others to seek confrontation when they had just seen the two most vociferous of the company prefer to stand down. Lubricate the whole with court charm, and leaven with warrior bluntness. Force unity from the mix with that same unspoken threat and promise you d summon for any ragtag command you got stuck with this is the thing you are a part of now, and it belongs to me; fracture it and you call me out. And you wouldn t want that.

  This shit he could do in his sleep.

  With the rest of his attention, he worried about Egar.

  Still somewhere in the city, Imrana thinks. Archeth didn t have much detail; even now she was playing catch-up like everyone else. The story of Saril Ashant s murder in his own bedchamber had rocked the court from top to bottom, but Imrana had enough connections to stanch the flow of further information down to a trickle. And her long years as an independent woman at court had taught her the nimble art of trusting no one any further than you absolutely had to. Archeth got a terse summons and a few minutes audience in which Imrana sketched the events of Egar s last visit. He shows up at the crack of dawn with some little trollop in tow, some hard-luck case he s rescued from sadistic priests and their evil sorcery

  Sorcery? Priests?

  Yeah, tell me about it. But you know what he s like, Archeth. He doesn t really see any difference between some bone-through-the-nose shaman up north and the Revelation. It s all magic to him, it s all evil. At heart, he s still the same hulking romantic thug he was when he rode into town fifteen years ago. It s all tales-around-the-campfire heroism and eternal bonds and Imrana, gesturing wearily out the window at the city beyond I mean, seriously, Archeth, who believes in that shit anymore?

  Have Saril s family put a bounty out on him yet?

  Probably. A thin grimace. They re not exactly keeping counsel with me at the moment. I imagine they re still deciding whether to try to put me in the chair for this.

  The chair? Ringil, aghast when Archeth reported back that evening. The fucking chair? I thought that was for traitors.

  And for women caught in, quote, adulterous machinations against a lawful spouse, unquote. It s an old law, very early Empire. Used to cover any kind of female adultery back in the day, but modern magistrature usually reads machinations to mean a plot against the husband s life or property. Anyway she picked up her goblet and drained it, but not before he d seen her shiver we have the Chamber of Confidences for traitors now, so the chair s been gathering rust.

  Right. Good. He topped up her glass from the flask on the table. The house was quiet and drowsy around them, flooded with rosy evening light from the west-facing windows. So, no chance she ll get strapped into it, then?

  Archeth studied her new drink. A couple of years ago, I d have said no way it could happen. But Demlarashan is really shaking things up at court. Lot of military fanfare going around these days. And Saril Ashant is was a bona fide war hero.

  Ringil grunted. Me, too. Outside of scars, what s that good for?

  If you re from the rank and file, not much, she admitted. But add it
to noble family and wealth, and you ve got a problem. No one at court wants to be seen not backing our glorious imperial troops.

  But Imrana has friends at court, right?

  Imrana has allegiances. It s not the same thing. And if they don t catch up with Egar, then everyone s going to be looking for someone else to take the rap. Her lip curled in disgust. Justice in this city is all about visible retribution and in the end, it doesn t much matter who s on the receiving end so long as vengeance is seen to be done.

  Sounds just like home. And Imrana really thinks Eg hasn t left town?

  From the way he was talking, she says not.

  Ringil rubbed at his chin. Strange.

  Well, what can I tell you? Archeth spread her hands. He has been acting strange the last couple of months. Especially the last couple of weeks, with Ashant back in town. You know, after all that time home on the steppe, maybe it was a mistake for him to come back here. Maybe city life doesn t agree with him anymore.

  Doesn t explain why he didn t leave town. Ringil held his drink up to the light, frowned critically at its color. Anyway, my guess is, what doesn t agree with Eg most of all is not getting laid. And who could fault him on that? Eh?

  She ignored the glance he shot her, ignored the prod. They ve got the City Guard out in force looking for him.

  Poor City Guard.

  I don t know, Gil. Those guys have changed a lot since the war. Lot of demobbed veterans in the ranks now, real hard men from the expeditionary and the sieges. They re not the joke they used to be. And Eg s not as young as he used to be, either.

  Ringil got up and went to stand at one of the sunset-gleaming windows. He stared out, as if he might spot the Majak perched there on one of the tiled roofs in the reddish evening light. Grinning and waving at him. Staff lance in hand.

  I back the Dragonbane against anything this city can throw at him, he said thoughtfully. With the possible exception of the King s Reach. And I don t guess Jhiral plans to waste that kind of manpower on catching just one more steppe nomad who couldn t keep his dick in his breeches, right?

  Archeth pursed her lips. Depends. Ashant s family swing some weight up at the palace. And like I said, the guy was a war hero. If the Guard don t get somewhere soon, they might push for it. They push hard enough, Jhiral may cave in.

  Ah, that ll be the regal majesty of the Burnished Throne in action, will it? The unbendable will of His Imperial Shininess?

  That s Radiance.

  Not from where I m standing.

  She waved the comment away, a wasp she d been stung by too many times to care about. Look, I ll do what I can to forestall the King s Reach deploying. But Demlarashan has split this city down the middle. Jhiral s hard up against the Citadel, and right now he needs all the backing at court he can get.

  Including, presumably, from the Ashants of this world.

  A tired nod. Most of the nobility side with the throne because they re shit scared of what mob religion will do if it hits the streets. That gets Jhiral the bulk of the professional military, too, the officer class and anyone loyal to them. And a fair few of the Citadel s Mastery are with us as well, because they re snug in bed with the nobility and don t want their comfy little boat rocked. But they re not anything like a majority, and they won t be able to hold the line if this thing kicks off. You ve got thousands of pissed-off and pious rank-and-file veterans out there, Gil. Across the Empire as a whole, it s tens of thousands. Men who went to war on the Citadel s say-so and came home to no change for the better.

  Yeah, you can see their point. He swung away from the window, as if dismissing something. Came back to the table.

  So are they organizing?

  According to Jhiral s spies, not yet. Not here, anyway. But they know how to fight.

  Gallows Gap flickered in his eyes like flames. I know they do.

  They survived the Scaled Folk, and they think that s down to God and the Revelation, so they aren t really afraid of anything anymore. This is what s fueling Demlarashan. Men like that, men with a grudge, and faith, and nothing much left to lose. And it can just as easily come home to roost right here in the city. It s another Ashnal schism just waiting to happen. And you ve got demagogues like Menkarak and his clique, who ll use that to bring the whole thing to the boil if they can.

  Ringil hooked up his seat by the upright slat, turned it about, and seated himself straddle-legged. Rested his arms on the back and sat there with his cloak puddled in black around him, brooding.

  Can t they take this Menkarak off the board? Sneak into his rooms one night and just slit his throat?

  Been tried. Jhiral sent half a dozen of the Throne Eternal s best assassins into the Citadel to get it done. None of them came back.

  A raised brow. Just can t get the help these days, huh?

  It isn t funny, Gil. The Citadel s a volcano getting ready to blow. You put enough cracks in Jhiral s alliances for example, you fail to deliver when the noble family of a Demlarashan war hero come asking for favors, and

  Yeah, I get it. He sighed. All right, look. You keep the King s Reach leashed as long as you can. Soon as I get the chance, I m going to wander about this town a bit, see if I can get the Dragonbane to show himself. There might be time.

  And if there isn t?

  He peeled her an unpleasant smile. Then to get to Egar, the King s Reach will have to come through me.

  CHAPTER 32

  He'd dyed his hair deep black in a run-down brothel bathroom just after dawn. Took out his talismans. Bribed the whore whose dyes he borrowed to forget he was ever there.

  It was a tidy sum by the standards of the place certainly more than she d make to fuck him but her expression barely changed with the commerce. She bit and stashed the coins without comment, somewhere under her grubby skirts, then pointed wordless down the corridor to where the baths could be found. By her listless, flandrijn-stunned gaze and the way she shut her fuck-room door on him as he left, Egar judged that forgetting him was exactly what she planned to do.

  The bath chambers were silent and cooling, and weak fingers of early daybreak probed down through the scant steam from a row of high windows on a slimy back wall. He saw no other clients, heard only some splashing and some patently false giggling somewhere in a darkened alcove. He found an alcove of his own, stripped himself to the waist, and worked rapidly with the dye. He gave it as long as he dared, then slicked back his newly blackened hair and squeezed it as dry as he could. Once out in the street, the sun would take care of the rest. He rinsed his hands a couple of times in the bathing pool, shook them dry, and put on his shirt again. The talismans went into his pocket. Then he slipped the catch on one of the high windows and hauled himself up and through, trying not to clout any of his wounds in the process. He clung from the outside ledge by his fingertips for a moment, then dropped down into the shaded back alley below.

  Pain spiked through the wound in his thigh with the impact, bad enough for a clench-jawed cry. He stumbled, propped himself against the wall, panting.

  Down the alley, what he d taken for a pile of refuse made an answering groan.

  He whipped around, hand to knife. For one desperate, floundering moment, he thought it was the front-parlor toughs, sent by the madam to investigate this customer who preferred to quit her premises by such unconventional means.

  No need for that blade, my friend. The voice was hoarse, but showed no sign of fear. I ve no quarrel with any man who leaves a brothel by the back window.

  Have you not? Egar stalked closer, peering.

  He made out a slim figure, cuddled into the wall beneath the folds of a Yhelteth cavalryman s cloak. Sable on white, the rearing horse insignia, long worn to a grubby black and cream but unmistakable nonetheless. The bearded face that looked back from above its collar was scarred and grimed, the hair a poorly cropped mess. But the eyes were steady.

  No quarrel at all. Done it myself, time to time. Way I see it, the least a patriotic brothelkeeper can do for a man who s served is waive paym
ent. But they rarely see it that way.

  Dangerous to linger here, but

  Egar sank into a sprawl against the opposite wall of the alley, rested aching limbs for just a few moments. He nodded at the cloak.

  Cavalryman, huh?

  Seventeenth Imperial, yes sir. The man freed his right hand from the folds of the cloak, held it up for inspection.

  Sadly no longer.

  Egar looked at the half-hand claw. Ring and little fingers gone, a ragged mass of scar tissue where the blade had chopped deep into the palm behind. He d seen the like often enough before rank-and-file cavalry swords were for shit when it came to anything other than hacking down fleeing infantry. The Empire s factories churned them out cheap and fast and shiny, and about one in a dozen would likely fail as soon as you went up against a decently equipped mounted opponent. Couple of well-placed blows and the guard gave way like rusted scrap.

  Seventeenth, huh? He racked weary brains for the memory. You were at Oronak then, that first summer when the Scaled Folk came. Before the dragons.

  Yes, we were. The steady eyes never wavered.

  They sat quietly for a few moments. It was in Egar s mouth to say he d seen the carnage at Oronak, to recall the nightmare they d found when they rode into town. He d been part of a relief column that arrived too late to do much more than wander the streets of the tiny port and count the dead. Repeated cavalry charges down Oronak s main thoroughfares had driven the Scaled Folk back, but at massive cost. Not one man in five lived to make report when the reinforcements finally arrived, and the results of the battle looked like something out of the Revelation s more twisted imaginings of hell: drifting smoke from buildings and boats set aflame by the command caste reptiles coughed-out venom, the corpses of men and horses scorched or bitten apart, the seared and screaming wounded reaching out to them

  Better you say nothing, Dragonbane. You don t want to be remembered here. Better you get yourself gone.

  Egar nodded across the alley at the man.

  You want to sell that cloak?