The Dark Defiles

by Richard K. Morgan

  “Any more Majak?”

  “A couple.” Egar grimaced. “Not a lot of use for swimming up on the steppe, most of them never learn.”

  “Did you find … Kaptal?” She’d been going to ask after Shendanak, or his sodden corpse anyway, then thought better of it. “Or Tand?”

  The Dragonbane shook his head. “Kaptal, no. No sign. And Tand went on the other ship—Flight of the … going west or whatever it was. With Shendanak and Shanta, remember?”

  She did now. “Gull—Flight of the Westward Gull. Yeah, but …”

  “But what?”

  “Well.” She gestured helplessly. “There’s a lot of wreckage.”

  “All from the one ship.” The Dragonbane jerked a thumb back at one of the accompanying privateers. “According to that guy, anyway, and he was second watch steersman on Lord of the Salt Wind. Figure he ought to know what he’s talking about. Seems pretty certain the other ship didn’t wreck, nor the Pride. Or at least—they didn’t wreck around here.”

  They reached the fire. One of the Throne Eternal, she didn’t know him by name, came to meet her and bowed his head. He was bedraggled and damp, but there was still a drilled poise in the way he stood that made her abruptly long for Yhelteth and home.

  “Alwar Nash, my lady. At your service. It brings me joy to find you hale. Will you come closer to the fire?”

  The solicitude melted some tiny chunk of something inside her, and for the first time she realized that her clothes were damp, that her head and body both ached from bruises she’d collected in the wreck, that she was in fact pretty fucking cold—

  She locked down a shiver, nodded weary thanks. Nash turned and brusquely ushered the crouched or kneeling men aside to make a path nearer the fire. There were some resentful glances, but between Archeth’s alien looks and Nash’s take-no-shit Throne Eternal demeanor, no one seemed to want to make an issue of it. She stood at the wall of heat like a supplicant, holding out her hands to it, trying not to shudder with pleasure as the warmth seeped into her chilled and battered body.

  There was some muttering among the privateers by the fire, the usual thing, and she would have paid it little attention, except that she saw the second steersman stride in among them, point back at her, and murmur something urgent. At which point the muttering dried up faster than a desert martyr’s blood. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a couple of the men make some gesture of … What’s that? Obeisance?

  “What’s going on?” she asked Egar as he joined her in the warmth. “I get that they don’t like the burned-black witch. But this is new.”

  The Dragonbane glanced over at the privateer huddle. “Yeah, forgot to mention. Reason we found you so fast? You were caught up on the bowsprit lines and the snapped top half of the figurehead, too. The whole lot was jammed in there, sticking back up into the sky like a big fucking arrow pointing us to where you were.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  Egar hesitated. “Thing is, when we got there, it looked like the figurehead had hold of you by one ankle. Ship’s called Lord of the Salt Wind, remember? That’s Takavach—Dakovash of the Dark Court for these guys—and the figurehead was his likeness. Looks like the Salt Lord grabbed you by the leg in the storm, hung on, and saved your life.”

  She shot him a sidelong look. “You’re not serious?”

  “Hey, you’re looking at the man Takavach showed up in person to save from a brother slaying back up on the steppe. What do I know? And another thing? Privateers and marines both are all muttering that was no natural storm hit us last night. Certainly came on pretty fucking fast.”

  “But—”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter, Archidi. Believe what you want. But if these men think you’re some kind of favorite with their Dark Court, it’s going to be handy for keeping order. So don’t knock it down.”

  “No problem.” She rubbed her hands together thankfully in the warmth from the flames. “Been the bad smell in the room around here for quite long enough. Adulation’s going to make a nice change.”

  A LITTLE LATER, SHE FELT WELL ENOUGH TO REALIZE SHE WAS HUNGRY AND asked Egar quietly about supplies. He shook his head.

  “We’re pretty low. Couple of oil jars with the seals still on, found them floating in the breakers. And there’s a salted ham we might be able to salvage some of. Got an intact crate over there with some ship’s biscuit in. Seawater got to some of it, but to be honest you need to soak that shit in brine before you can eat it anyway.” He looked at the backs of his battle-scarred hands. “It’ll do for now. Water’s the bigger problem.”

  She brooded on the chains of jagged rising rock that formed the hinterland view. “There’s got to be some up there somewhere though, right?”

  “Somewhere, yeah. But it could be a long way, and when we find it, it may not be safe to drink. Couple of times on the expeditionary, your father told us not to drink the water we found. Said it was likely poisoned.”

  “Great. So do we scout or—”

  A cry from someone on the other side of the fire. Egar and Archeth stepped wide of the billowing heat haze the flames gave off. Saw returning figures dotted along the shingle to the south. Moving slowly by the look of it—for some reason Archeth thought of men walking into the teeth of a roaring gale.

  “My eyes aren’t what they used to be,” the Dragonbane muttered. “Is that … are they carrying someone back there? The last ones in the file?’

  “Or something.” Archeth squinted. “Hard to tell. I count eleven men walking, anyway. That right?”

  Egar grunted. “Four more than I sent out.”

  They watched and waited as the party straggled in. Archeth recognized the Throne Eternal who led them—Selak Chan, the man who’d come aboard Pride of Yhelteth and found her trying to sink Anasharal in the harbor. His young face seemed to have aged ten years since she saw it last, but as with Alwar Nash, there was a trained spine of determination to his stance that gave her a little hope. He bowed deeply as he reached her.

  “My lady. Such fortune we could not have hoped for. My life at your command. And with the news I bring—”

  “You found survivors?” Egar broke in pragmatically.

  Chan nodded, gestured back. “Two League, a Majak kid and one of Tand’s. All in pretty good shape—one of the League guys has a couple of broken fingers, but we splinted them up. Tand’s dog is limping, says he did something to his knee. But he can walk.”

  “So who are you … carrying …” Voice fading out as she saw.

  The last two men in the party were both League sailors. They’d slung a couple of lengths of three-inch rope across their shoulders and to form a nifty makeshift carry cable between. Hanging from the rope, like some giant crab caught up on netting, was a Kiriath machine.

  Anasharal … ?

  It took her measurable moments to realize it was not—could not be—the Helmsman.

  First of all, no mention of Anasharal had been made by her captors at any point, and she had to assume that it was still skulking aboard Sea Eagle’s Daughter somewhere, silently imitating some inanimate object.

  Yeah, or dazzling Klithren and his men with some sorcerous shit or other, and securing passage south.

  In any case, the thing the men carried was no Helmsman. It was smaller than Anasharal, for one thing, and more skeletal in frame. The central mass was dwarfed by powerful limbs, whose articulations would have risen well above the body itself when the thing walked, and by two of which it now hung suspended from the rope sling. It was like some nightmare version of a Helmsman, some predatory fantasy Anasharal might once have dreamed of itself.

  “What the fuck is that?” Egar, asking it for all of them.

  “Dunno,” grunted one of the men carrying the sling. “But it’s very fucking heavy.”

  He nodded to his companion and the two of them shucked the rope sling in a single neat motion. The crablike thing clanked and rattled loudly on the shingle as it landed. It lay there on its back, legs splayed and draped outwa
rd, while the men from the fire crowded around to stare.

  “Is it dead?” someone asked wonderingly.

  “Looks that way,” said the sailor who’d complained about the weight. “Looks like they burned it up or something.”

  It was true—now she looked at it carefully, Archeth saw that the thing was blackened and charred all over. Parts of it even seemed to have melted, something she found hard to credit despite the evidence of her own eyes. Her people built habitually out of materials that would withstand great heat. Outside of dragon venom, which ate pretty much anything it touched, the only time she’d seen substantial damage to Kiriath alloys was—

  Khangset.

  She still remembered her first view from the rise above the town—Khangset’s seaward ramparts torn and melted through when the dwenda came calling, the damage done as if by gigantic white-hot claws.

  The Talons of the Sun, Ringil told her they called it. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was, had himself never seen it in action. From what he did know, it seemed the dwenda used it like volleys of flaming arrows to open passage, to sew chaos and terror ahead of an assault or simply to obliterate everything in their path.

  Later, she’d found fleeting reference to it in the war chronicles her people left behind. But the language was ornate and unhelpful—usually a sure sign of the writer covering for their own lack of knowledge or reliable memory. She’d talked to the Helmsmen and not gotten much further. They’d been around for the war, four thousand years back, but they couldn’t tell her much more than she’d already gleaned elsewhere. They’d seen what the Talons did, had perfect recall of smoldering ruins and whole armies charred to ash, but the strike had always come from a place they could not see. They had some largely incomprehensible explanation of how this might work, one that lost Archeth at the first bend.

  “Where did you find this?” she asked Chan.

  The Throne Eternal nodded back over his shoulder. “At the bottom of a gully, my lady, on the other side of the headland. There were quite a few like it, all piled up there. I believe they must have come from the fortress.”

  “Fortress?” Hunger, cold, the bruising she’d taken. For the first time, she felt genuinely dizzy. “You found a … fortress? A Kiriath fortress?”

  “Yes, my lady. I was about to tell you.” Chan shot a reproachful glance at the Dragonbane. “We saw it from the headland, out to sea at least a mile. It stands in the ocean exactly as the Helmsman described it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  here were three fishing skiffs tied up along the causeway quay. The imperials found a couple of younger privateers cowering among the nets aboard the first, smacked them about a bit and threw them overboard. Splash and roil of waters as they were snatched down screaming—one or two of the marines looked a little queasy as they caught glimpses, but the rest seemed to be getting used to it.

  Ringil cobbled together a rough-and-ready kindling spell Hjel had taught him early on and conjured fire from the damp timbers in the prow of the boat. It took a couple of attempts, the first one more smoke and smolder than flame. But second time around, the spell took. The damp wood snapped and crackled alight like desert scrub kindling. Ringil stepped back, splayed hands toward the flames, as if at once restraining them and warming his hands.

  “Get out of the boat,” he suggested to the curious imperials rubbernecking at his back. “And somebody get that mooring cut.”

  He clambered out after them. Watched somberly as the little improvised fireship drifted away from the causeway, spun about like a floated needle seeking north, then settled into an eerily rapid and accurate course across the harbor. The imperials clustered about him on the quay’s edge, but none got too close.

  “There’s no current pulling that way,” somebody muttered at his back.

  “Yeah, no shit,” came a low response. “What, did you just get here or something? You didn’t see those guys go into the water?”

  Ringil turned about as if he hadn’t heard. Made for the second skiff. The rhythms for the kindling spell were thrumming in his head now, he had it down. Pretty sure he’d only need the one shot at it this time. More than enough spare attention to track the murmured conversation among the men who followed him.

  “This is evil work,” he heard. “The Revelation is clear. It’s forbidden to have dealings with powers like these. Scarface there is going to—”

  “Keep your fucking voice down! Man’s a sorcerer, isn’t he?”

  Twitch of a grin at the corners of Ringil’s mouth. A fresh voice joined in.

  “Yeah, Krag, we’re all real upset about how it’s turning out. We just kicked these pirates’ arses into the harbor thanks to Scarface there. I’ll take that over a barrel of invigilator’s indulgences any day of the week.”

  “Yeah, you ever see an invigilator fight like that?”

  Guffaws.

  “Ever see an invigilator fight at all?”

  “That’s blasphemy, Shahn! The Revelation’s our guide to salvation of the soul. The invigilators cannot mire themselves in worldly matters.”

  “Yeah? Seen a couple of them mire themselves pretty deep in the girls at Salyana’s Yard last year.”

  “What I hear, most of them prefer boys.”

  “Man, now that’s just fucking obscene—”

  “Oh, what—you really going to pull that face, Mahmal? After the way you snuggled up to little rosy cheeks from the galley aboard Lizardlash last year?”

  “That’s different, man. That’s at sea. But when you’ve got the fucking choice … ”

  They reached the second skiff. Showing off a little, Gil made the cast from the causeway this time, into the piled up nets in the bottom of the boat. Smoke and smolder, and for a moment he thought he’d fucked it up again. Then the flames broke out, pale and crackling in the bright morning air. He rested one boot on the side of the skiff, gave the fire a moment to really take, then nodded at the marine nearest the mooring iron. The man hacked a knife blade up through the rope and Ringil gave the boat a heavy, booted shove away from the causeway’s edge.

  “My lord!” A marine, hurrying along the quay from the stairway end. “My lord Ringil!”

  Gil turned to face him. The imperial bore the marks of the engagement just gone—he was limping somewhat, he’d been bandaged crudely about the head. Blood had trickled down from the binding and was starting to dry on his face. Still, he seemed pretty cheerful.

  “My lord, Commander Hald sends word—he is ready to move on the town. Fresh men are coming up at the tower to support the push.”

  “Excellent.” Ringil nodded at the last remaining skiff. “Everybody in the boat, then. Tell Commander Hald we’ll see him on the other side.”

  He watched with some amusement as the men around him looked at each other in alarm. Then he strode to the third skiff, threw in his borrowed shield and jumped down after it. Looked back expectantly at the marines.

  “Gentlemen, if you please.”

  They came without much enthusiasm, nine men in all, lowered themselves in with wary care. They sat gingerly away from the sides, while he took station at the prow and waited for the bandaged marine to cut them loose. Out ahead in the harbor waters, the other two skiffs were well ablaze and heading steadily for the League man-of-war tied up at the main dock. In the brightening light of the morning, the fireships looked harmless and toylike, but he could already hear voices raised in alarm along the dock.

  Good enough.

  They made good time across the harbor - stood at the prow, Ringil glanced down and saw the lead akyia just below the surface of the water, swimming effortlessly on its side, long, fronded limbs rippling. One claw-tipped hand trailed back to caress the keel, as if guiding the vessel by touch alone. The creature’s head was tilted up, one fist-sized eye seeming to watch him through the water, huge lampreylike mouth irising open and shut in the boneless lower face.

  They’re talking about you.

  Seethlaw’s words, the first time they saw the akyia, watch
ing them both from shallow waters, just offshore in the Grey Places. At the time, he’d dismissed the dwenda’s words as a joke. But he was pretty sure there’d been an akyia in the river when he came out of the crumbling temple at Afa’marag. He was pretty sure it had left him his dragon-tooth dagger, pegged in the mud on the riverbank. And somewhere in the twisted morass of nightmare and memory he carried from that time, was a flicker-lit recollection of taking the Ravensfriend out of a webbed and clawed hand that offered it like a gift from the water.

  I see what the akyia saw, Gil. I see what you could become if you’d only let yourself.

  He wasn’t sure what he was becoming, but he knew they’d shadowed him northward. He’d seen them cavorting in the surf one night at Lanatray when he went out to prowl the battlements of his mother’s summer retreat. He’d seen them at play in the bandlight-dappled wake of Dragon’s Demise on more than one occasion, though no one else up on deck those nights seemed to share his vision. And when the kraken came calling, hauling itself up meatily on deck one questing tentacle at a time in search of prey, it was the akyia who swarmed it, tearing at its bulk with claws and mouths, dragging it finally back down into the ocean before Ringil had the chance to do more than hack at it a half dozen times.

  They featured in Naomic myth, more often called the merroigai, though the focus in those tales was usually on their sleek, womanlike bodies and seductive ways with mariners. Not so much mention of the nightmarish bone structure and feeding apparatus of the face, or the rather intimidating claws. But for all that, they were seen as creatures of power. There were legends that made them minor gods, close relatives of the Dark Court nobility. In other myth, they were linked specifically with the Salt Lord Dakovash. In some versions they were his eyes and ears across the ocean, in others his handmaidens.

  Seethlaw had been reticent, told him nothing meaningful or useful, but one thing had come across very clearly. The dwenda lord and his sister Risgillen were both obviously wary of offending the akyia, if not actually scared of them. And anything that worried the dwenda, well, that had to be worth something.