The Steel Remains lffh-1

by Richard K. Morgan

  Or a brotherslaying.

  Egar’s mouth tightened. He counted heads. Seven, maybe eight of them, in single file. Long odds, and time running out. The riders weren’t moving particularly fast, but there was a steady purpose to the motion and to the path they picked out. And you didn’t have to watch them for long to know they were heading for the tree and Erkan’s grave.

  The fire crackled to itself, unconcerned. It was gaining strength now.

  Oh, you faithless motherfuckers.

  He stared blindly across the horse’s back for a moment, eyes defocusing on the riders, remembering Ergund’s face.

  I’ll go with him, Eg. You know what Alrag gets like when he thinks about Dad, when he drinks. He’ll get in a fight as soon as spit, if I’m not there to drag him out.

  Yeah. Egar, recalling his own drunken brawl with the quiet imperial, nearly two decades gone. Getting a bit old for that shit, isn’t he?

  Ergund gave him a strange look. We all find different ways to live with it, Eg. Who’s to say yours is the best?

  I wasn’t saying that.

  No, but—

  Okay, skip it. Whatever. You keep an eye out for him.

  And off to some meeting of herd owners he hoped he could choke down to a couple of hours, by which time Sula should have gotten her chores done and her hot little body across to the yurt, and would no doubt be admiring herself in the big Kiriath mirror he kept there. He was going to come up behind her there and—

  He remembered that, staring out at the riders now, how that feeling had snaked tight across his belly, how he’d watched Ergund slope off to Ishlin-ichan, and been glad to see him go.

  Glad the vigil called for a single son, glad for once that rank and tradition demanded he fulfill the role. He badly didn’t want to have to spend the night in the company of Ergund and Alrag, or any of his other brothers, come to that, whether sunk in the reeking, steaming, bellowing chaos of an Ishlin-ichan tavern or out here on the cold quiet sweep of the steppe, with nothing at all to say to one another.

  He swung himself up into the saddle, wheeled the horse about, and yanked the staff lance up out of the ground. His lips peeled back off a grimace.

  Well, there’ll be no shortage of things to say now, I expect.

  He nudged the horse up the rise until it stood just clear of the tree. He rested the lance across the saddlebow at a slanting angle and waited for the riders to reach him.

  HE SPOTTED ALRAG WHILE THE NEW ARRIVALS WERE STILL A GOOD hundred yards out—his eldest brother had a cockerel swagger in the way he sat a horse, and for all he was swathed in a heavy cowled cloak, Egar would have known him anywhere by stance alone.

  The others—he now saw it was seven, not eight, thank Urann for small fucking mercies—also went cloaked and cowled. Their weapons made vague lumps in the cloth, could in some cases have been anything, mace, hand ax, who knew. But four out of the company carried broadswords, naked blades jutting clearly down below the hem of their outer garment. Mercenaries, then. The Majak didn’t have much time for broadswords; too expensive, too southern-showy, and only really good for the one thing—killing men. It offended the steppe nomad soul to wield a weapon you couldn’t hunt with or use around the camp for chores. So it seemed Alrag had hired for the occasion—either southern freebooter scum too low-grade to hack it in the south, or wannabe Majak renegades aping the manners of those they aspired to be.

  Something in Egar eased a little. These he could probably kill without too much trouble. He sat motionless, head tipped down, and let them draw near. When the distance was down to easy hailing, he looked up. Only his eyes moved.

  “Well, brother,” he called. “Are you going to take that priest bollocks hood off and show me your fucking face?”

  Three different hands twitched at the reins; one even rose halfway, then fell back. Egar nodded bleakly to himself. The three without swords. The betrayal was almost complete, then. Alrag and Ergund, without question. One other, Gant or Ershal. Had to be Gant, he’d mouthed off enough in the past about what a shit clanmaster Egar was, he’d want to be here for this.

  The party drew to an ill-coordinated halt less than twenty yards away. Egar held his posture.

  “What about you, Ergund? You come to murder me, but you won’t look me in the eye? Father would be proud.”

  One of the cloaked figures reached up and tugged back its cowl. Ergund’s face emerged, helmeted for battle. In the failing steppe light, he looked pale beneath the metal, but determined.

  “We haven’t come to murder you,” he shouted. “If you’d just—”

  “Yeah, we have.” Now Alrag shook off his hood as well. He, too, wore a helmet, a little more ornate than Ergund’s, with a low horsehair crest. “He’s too fucking stubborn to bow out gracefully. Anyone can see that.”

  “It doesn’t have to—”

  “Yes, it does, Ergund.” Ershal’s quiet tones from beneath one of the other cowls. He did not unmask. “Alrag’s right about this. There won’t be any half measures.”

  Egar forced down his surprise, and a little unlooked-for hurt.

  “Hello, little brother. Didn’t expect to see you here. I thought better of you.”

  “Yeah, well we all thought better of you, too,” Ershal snapped. “Once upon a time, when it still looked like you deserved it. Seven years we’ve given you, Egar. Seven fucking years! And what have you done with our fealty? You pissed it away, man. Made us the laughingstock of the Majak, made our family the laughingstock of the clan. You’re not fit for the mastery. That’s the truth, and everybody knows it.”

  “Everybody, huh? So what happened to Gant? He break a leg getting on his horse? Or has he just not poured as much tavern courage down his throat as the rest of you?”

  Ershal put back his hood. Of the three brothers, he was the only one who had chosen to ride bare-headed. “We’re not drunk,” he said calmly. “And Gant will not involve himself in this, but he will approve the outcome. He knows as well as anyone, the mastery must pass to safer hands.”

  Egar stared back at him, unmoving.

  “You do know you’re going to have to kill me,” he said.

  “That choice is yours.” Ershal held his gaze. “But you have left us no choice at all. The shaman is right. If we don’t act, you’ll bring the ruin of the Gray One on us all.”

  “The shaman, eh? Been listening to that dried-up old buzzard, have you? You stupid fucking—”

  “We’ve been vouchsafed a vision,” shouted Ergund. “You profane the names of the Dwellers for all to hear. You snub the respected men of the clan as if they were hirelings, so you can rush back to your yurt, get pissed, and shove your prick into whatever teenage slut takes your fancy. You barely bother to honor the rituals, you drink and brood and sit alone instead, or you get out of your face and stumble about all night telling everyone how fucking wonderful it was in the south, how much you miss it, how we’ve all got to fucking change and be more like the imperials, be more civilized. You’ve sired no honorable heirs, nor given any good example for our young men to follow except to escape their obligations and go adventuring in the south. Oh yeah, and to fuck whatever piece of cheap milkmaid arse they can get the leggings down on.”

  “Jealous much, Ergund?”

  “Hey, fuck you!”

  Egar snapped a glance at Alrag. Their gazes locked.

  “And you, brother. Do I get to hear your list of complaints, too? Some hallowed boundary I’ve overstepped in your eyes as well, is there?”

  Alrag shrugged. “I don’t care who you fuck. You’re in my way.”

  It was like a cowl thrown back from everything, the truth of the moment exposed and grinning skullishly at them all. The mask of talk peeled off, discarded somewhere in the quiet. The chill of what had to be done stood waiting.

  Ergund must have felt it more than the others.

  “Listen, Egar. It doesn’t have to be like this. You can walk away. Just give up your weapons and your horse. Give an oath on father’s c
airn that you won’t come back. They’ll take you as far as the mountains and turn you loose.”

  It was almost worth laughter—Egar made do with a thin grin. “Is that what they told you, Ergund? Is that how they got you saddled up for this?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “It’s a fucking lie. It’s not even a very imaginative one.” Egar nodded at the hooded, silent sword carriers. “These men? They’ll slit my throat as soon as you’re over the horizon, just to save themselves the ride. I’m surprised they even agreed to show up before you had me disarmed. I hope you haven’t paid them in advance.”

  A couple of growled oaths from the freebooters—one of them cleared his sword from its straps, leveled the blade one-handed at Egar. But his mount skittered a couple of steps at the movement and ruined the gesture. His voice came across young and tense.

  “You shut your fucking mouth.”

  “I think I’ll wait till you come over here and make me.” Neither the clanmaster nor his Yhelteth warhorse had shifted more than a statue. Egar saw the sword tremble as the mercenary worked to hold its weight out horizontally. Saw the tip waver and grinned into the blank shadow under the hood. “Son, you have been misinformed. Did they not tell you who I am?”

  The young freebooter swiped back his hood, used the move to drop his sword and leave it at an easier angle to maintain. In the space cleared by the fallen cowl, Egar saw a crude metal helmet but only leather at his shoulders and throat, perhaps at most some kind of thin wood-slat cuirass. No shielding steel. The face above the collar matched the voice—wispy-bearded, acne-scarred, pale features out of the free cities or somewhere close. No more than eighteen or nineteen years old. Mouth stretched wet and wide to let out all the youthful rage.

  “I know you’re a fucking dead man,” he yelled.

  “We all are, sooner or later. But I think you’ll be on the Sky Road before me. I used to kill dragons for a living, son. You, I’m going to use for a toothpick.”

  “We’re going to fucking gut you!”

  “In your syphilitic whore mother’s dreams, you are.”

  And then, of course, it all came apart.

  He heard Alrag yell, wasn’t sure if it was an attempt to stop the slide toward slaughter, or just impatient incitement to get on with it. Either way, it was irrelevant—the young freebooter had already kicked his horse into an untidy charge, mouth working, face contorted. Another of the mercenaries went with him, tugging his sword up and out as he came, hood still up and flopping in his eyes. Yelling a name. Maybe the word son; in the tilt of the moment it was hard to tell.

  Fucking amateurs.

  Egar met the two men head-on. He cut out low with the lance, slashed open the throat on the younger man’s horse, let it thrash past in panicked agony. Blood loosed on the air, splattering off the lance blade, the scream of the dying animal and the rider’s wild yell as he came off. Egar’s horse stepped delicately sideways of it all, as if avoiding a lady’s carriage on the Boulevard of Grace Foretold. The second mercenary reined hard and right, trying to avoid the mess in his path, thoughts of attack apparently forgotten. Egar leaned, took his cowl and most of his face off with a savage upward slash. The man shrieked and flailed blindly about with his sword. His helmet was gone, flipped off and away like a mug off a tavern table. Raw flaps and shreds of flesh hung in place of his features, blinding him the way the hood must have earlier. His terrified mount spun about beneath him, screamed along with him, then flung him to the ground. Egar whistled and nudged his warhorse, and it stamped forward, put its steel-shod hooves through the fallen freebooter’s rib cage with the same trained delicacy it had danced aside before. Egar heard the crunch it made, felt it right through the horse’s frame and up into his own groin. He threw back his head and howled.

  And there was Alrag, teeth bared, hurtling in with his own staff lance swung high in one hand for spearing. It wasn’t a thrust you could block.

  But . . .

  Egar danced the Yhelteth destrier aside, put himself on Alrag’s unweaponed flank. His brother spotted the move, couldn’t swap the lance about in time and had to settle for a clumsy double-handed defensive block. Egar met it with his own lance double-handed as a staff. The two weapons struck each other a glancing blow and then Alrag was past, wheeling his mount tightly about, turning the charge. Egar knew the animal from camp, it was well trained and spirited, and his eldest brother was a consummate horseman. He didn’t have much time.

  The two remaining mercenaries had huddled their mounts together as if for comfort. One of them brandished his sword; the other had a small, horseman’s crossbow, was trying desperately to crank it back for action. Egar urged his horse into a gallop, right at the two of them, venting another long berserker scream as he came.

  As he’d hoped, their horses panicked and split apart. He ignored the man with the sword, charged down on the crossbow artist before he could get his horse back around and bring his weapon to bear. The lance blade shocked into the freebooter’s back with enough force to unseat him, must have gone right through the thin wood-slat armor, if he was wearing it, and severed the spine beneath. Egar yanked back fast and tight so as not to lose the lance as the man went to the ground. The blade came free, the body toppled bonelessly sideways off the horse and onto the ground. Egar never saw it complete the fall—he was already turning his own mount about.

  Alrag was right on his tail.

  Egar roared and brought his lance swinging around, stabbed out as his brother rode in at him. Alrag flinched, both lances went wide. The two horses passed each other again in the dusk. The clanmaster gathered himself, grabbed glimpses of the steppe left and right, saw the final mercenary in full flight, spurring his horse toward the horizon as if pursued by demons. He snarled a grin.

  “Just family now,” he yelled against the darkening sky. “Cozy, isn’t it?”

  Something hissed through the air. The Yhelteth warhorse screamed and bucked beneath him. A black-fletched arrow sprouted from its shoulder. He whipped about, saw Ershal, recurved short bow in hand, arm reaching down to the saddle box for the next shaft. Remembered too late his younger brother’s chief prowess ever since they were children.

  “Oh, you little shit!”

  He urged the destrier forward with his thighs. It wallowed as it tried to obey. A second shaft took it deep in the flank. Blood welled up. It screamed again, staggered forward half a dozen desperate steps, neck arched, stumbling. Egar screamed with it, hefted his lance, willed himself and his mount closer to his brother.

  “I’ll rip your motherfucking heart out for this, Ershal!”

  The third arrow put out the animal’s eye. It went mad, reared and tumbled, hurled Egar from its back. He hit the ground and rolled, somehow kept the lance, somehow else managed not to spike himself on it, came to a halt in the grass clutching at its shaft. Behind him, he heard the crash as his horse hit the ground, the sound of it curling and trying to get up, falling back. The endless heart-ripping cries it gave out as it struggled and thrashed.

  He got muzzily to his hands and knees. Soft pulsing snarl in the base of his throat. Back on your feet, back on your fucking feet, Majak. The horse screamed again. Egar cast about in the gloom of near dark, found Ergund and Ershal a couple of dozen paces away, edged in bandlight. Alrag farther out but trotting back toward them and erect in the saddle, pleased with himself. None of them close enough to take down with a thrown knife.

  Off to the left, the young mercenary staggered about groaning, fell down abruptly, lost to view in the grass. It looked as if he’d taken a bad blow to the head when he was unhorsed. He didn’t get up again.

  Ershal put another arrow into the stricken warhorse. It screamed again, but weakly now.

  “Urann’s sake, fucking kill it, will you.”

  Ergund—all his life, he’d hated it when the animals suffered. Egar remembered when he was ten and . . .

  The hiss-thump of another arrow. The horse snorted and quieted. Egar slipped through the gras
s in a low raider’s crouch, knuckles white on the staff of his lance, a pulsing vein of fury through his brain like a spike. Whatever else happened now, he was going to take Ershal apart before he died.

  “That’s far enough, Egar.”

  His brother’s voice, calm against the fading agony of the destrier. Egar looked up through the night breeze sway of the grass and saw Ershal upright in the saddle, the bow bent on him from less than ten yards. Cold, quailing horror as he waited for the impact—his brother would not miss, and at this range, off the recurved bow, the shaft would go right through him.

  “That’s it. Up where I can see you.”

  Egar straightened from his crouch. A bitter smile touched the corners of his mouth. He heard the snuffling his horse made as it died. He thought maybe his knife would reach from here. He dropped the lance.

  “Go on then. You traitorous little fuck. Get it done.”

  “You were given every chance to—”

  “Oh, fuck off.”

  Alrag rode up, reined his horse to an unnecessarily savage halt, and glanced back and forth along the line the arrow would take.

  “What are you fucking waiting for?” he inquired acidly.

  Ershal flickered a glance at Alrag, then Ergund. But his attention never shifted from the draw he had on Egar.

  “We’re all agreed, then?”

  Egar clawed for his knife.

  Ershal loosed the arrow.

  The world went dark.

  NO, NOT DARK, HE REALIZED.

  Had time to realize.

  The arrow had not hit him.

  Not dark, just dim, like the dimming of your eyes when you’d stared too hard at the sun before you ducked into a yurt. Like the sudden steeping of gloom in a Yhelteth theater house before the curtains ran back.