The Dark Defiles

by Richard K. Morgan

  We’ll take what allies we can get, Akal the Great told his court bluntly, when news of the alliance with Trelayne against the lizards was proclaimed. And we’ll not question our good fortune in finding them.

  Ringil had never much liked the man, but he couldn’t fault the thinking.

  They were coming up on the shingle beach now, at the end of the quay. No sign of a reception committee. In the wake of the fireships and Hald’s encroachment along the far side of the harbor, no one had had time to notice them arrive. The lead akyia let go the boat’s keel, executed a slick dive-and-turn that would have broken the back on any human swimmer, and was gone, back into deeper waters. Through his own grip on the prow and his boots, Gil thought he felt the release of multiple claws from the underside of the skiff and a faint slackening of the boat’s momentum.

  “Ready it, lads.” Shahn, the ranking imperial present, gruff voice raised. “I want a nice tight deployment behind my lord Ringil, soon as we hit. Blades out after you jump.”

  They ran in to the shelving shingle with a sustained, grinding crunch. The boat jammed to a halt and tilted to one side along the keel. Gil leapt out, shield slung, splashing heavily through ankle shallows and up onto dry land. He stood and drew the Ravensfriend, sheer leadership bravado, there was nothing here to kill with it. But he heard the multiple scrape as the men at his back followed suit.

  “Shields!”

  They stalked up the beach as one. The soft breeze plucked aside his cloak, put a moment’s chill back in his damp clothing. He shivered, but it felt exultant.

  Dad, if you could only see me now. Leading a pack of imperials in assault on a chartered League town.

  Outlaw faggot scum, is it?

  Fair enough.

  They made the street to the quay unnoticed, traded shingle for cobbles with some relief. A couple of hundred yards off to the right, one of the makeshift fireships had lodged at the waterline of the League warship, flames licking upward at the rail and rigging there. Men swarmed the ship with buckets, trying to get the fire out.

  Yeah, good luck with that. Hjel had taught him well; nothing would quench invoked fire until the thing you’d set aflame was ash.

  Meantime …

  The plan was pretty straightforward, a lopsided pincer to clear out the wharf of any hostile forces, then advance up into the town with general slaughter. But as they reached the quay, he heard yelling and the clatter of boots on cobbles, carried down from the street above in the still morning air. Reinforcements, coming down.

  He whipped around to face the imperials, whirl of decision and hurried speech.

  “Four men, with me, now. We’re going up there and block the next wave. Shahn, you take the others and hack your way through to Hald.”

  Six of the eight imperials stepped forward on the instant. Assume the remaining two had to be the pious Krag and a like-minded pal. Ringil grinned and pointed at random with his shield.

  “You, you, you and you. Thank you, gentlemen.” Briefly, turning to Shahn. “Tell Hald we’ll hold the slope as long as we can, but some backup would be nice. Okay, go. Get it done. The rest of you, with me. Let’s fucking chase them back up that hill, shall we?”

  Grim laughter. They knew what they were being asked to do, they knew the odds. Five blades to stop up the street against who knew how many privateers, and the gradient against them, too.

  He raised the Ravensfriend like a steel standard.

  “For your comrades, gentlemen—for the Empire! Make it count!”

  For the Empire, Gil? Where’d that one come from?

  Hey, whatever works.

  They rushed the corner, got there at about the same time as the privateer force hurrying down the street—to that extent, it was an ambush and quite effective as such. The descending soldiers literally stumbled over Ringil’s squad. Gil battered the lead privateer with his shield, knocked him down, kicked him in the head, and left him for someone else to finish. He cut low on the next man, chopped the legs out from under him almost before the privateer realized he was there. Then slip aside as the maimed and screaming soldier tumbled past, plant your feet, meet the third man with hew and block and slice, all the time looking for that opening. Watch those cobbles underfoot—the night’s fog and the morning dew had left them slick and treacherous.

  The privateer he faced found out the same thing on too much downward momentum—he staggered on a parry, came around too far—the Ravensfriend scythed down, took off his arm just below the elbow. Gout of blood across the air, and the man bellowed like a slaughterhouse ox as he saw it happen. Ringil grabbed him roughly by the jerkin, shoved him aside. Caught some of the blood, warm and wet, across the side of his face as the man fell screaming.

  The imperials had opened out around him like the petals on some malign black rose. Slam of shields and hack and stab—they scooped the surprised privateers in, set them stumbling about on the incline, had slaughtered a half dozen before anyone managed to back up and mount a decent defense. For long moments, panic and confusion swept the League ranks—they couldn’t see exactly what kind of force had got in their way, how strong it was, or how well armed. And this outlaw they’d come to take down, wasn’t he a black mage or something, was this some kind of sorcery … ?

  Of course, it couldn’t last.

  “For Hoiran’s fucking sake, there’s only five of them! Form up!”

  Like a dog shaking itself, the privateer troop rallied. Shields came down off shoulders, a ragged line formed up, backed away for breathing space. The imperials grabbed the chance, drew breath of their own, stood panting. The privateer who’d shouted pushed his way through to the front, grinning savagely beneath an ornate helm that hid his upper face. There was a sergeant’s badge emblem painted crudely across his cuirass, an ax held low in his right hand and—Gil’s heart sank—a skirmish ranger’s coat beneath the armor.

  “Right,” he snapped, and pointed with his ax. “Now cut these perfumed southern ponces down, will you.”

  Here we go, Gil. Now or never.

  Sword arm thrown up, as if blocking a punch, fist reversed, Ravensfriend held vertical, blade pointing down. He took three fingers off the grip, held on to the sword with circled index finger and thumb. He made the glyph. Hoped Hjel’s much vaunted Powers were paying close attention, out here in this, come on now, pretty fucking open space.

  The skirmish ranger snorted. “Fuck’s that supposed to mean? You want to surrender now, outcast? That all you got?”

  “Your helmet is red hot,” Ringil told him.

  And watched as the man screamed, dropped his ax and grabbed his helm with both hands, screamed again as his fingers touched the metal and melted from the heat, went to his knees still screaming. The skirmish ranger spasmed to the cobbles and thrashed and rolled and arched in agony, scream on scream on scream, until it was done, and finally lay there twitching, eyes poached white in their sockets.

  Faint steam curled out of the wrenched gape of his mouth, like a soul departing.

  The cost of it all came and took Gil like a kick in the guts. It was a major effort not to flinch, not to sag in the wake of the forces that had passed through him, not to sit down right there on the cobbled street. He lifted the Ravensfriend instead, trembling fingers clenched once more around the grip. He pointed with the blade at the staring privateers. The voice that grated up out of him seemed to belong to another creature entirely.

  “Who’s next?” it asked them.

  They broke and ran.

  Luckily.

  HE LED THE IMPERIALS UP THE STREET AFTER THE ROUT. HALD COULD PLAY catch-up when he finally broke through along the wharf. He was a smart lad, he’d work it out.

  We certainly left enough bodies for him.

  They made no real attempt to catch the fleeing privateers—better to let them sow panic in all they met along the way, then deal with any die-hard hero types who didn’t buy the tale and decided to make a stand. They took the slope at no more than a brisk walk. Slow enough to let G
il get some breath back and try to master the trembling in his guts. He’d pushed it too far, he knew—just as Hjel had warned him not to—and here came the price. One thing to put imagined terrors and doubts into the minds of ignorant, ill-educated opponents. That came at a light enough toll, was almost, according to Hjel, not sorcery at all. But this trick—pulling furnace heat out of the air’s very pores, pulling it down on an elite trained opponent’s head in the midst of combat and the blink of an eye …

  That, you paid for in heavy coin.

  The ikinri ‘ska snaked about within him, like something wanting to be fed. It coiled and snapped in his chest and guts, watered his eyes, shoved jagged spikes down the nerves in his arms and legs. He had no way to get a grip on it.

  “Upper window!” Crisp, controlled alert from one of the imperials. “Left side.”

  He swung to look. Saw only a boy of about ten or twelve gaping down at them, pointing finger raised, turning back into the room behind, lips moving.

  And grabbed away by a burly, parental form.

  “Nothing—” He cleared his throat, gathered some command back into it. “Nothing to worry about. Keep the pace.”

  Farther up, where the sloping thoroughfare took a hairpin turn, they found blood trickling down between the cobbles and tracked it to a stricken privateer. The man was trying to crawl out of the street and into the sanctuary of a narrow gap between neighboring houses. He’d either staggered this far and then collapsed, or been carried by comrades who’d thought better of the gesture and shed their burden in favor of a speedier retreat. He heard their boots coming and scrabbled over onto his back, propped himself up on one elbow, and groped desperately at his belt for a knife that wasn’t there. There were smeared puddles of blood on the cobbles where he’d crawled, and a ragged ax gash in his jerkin just above the hip, marking the wound beneath. He looked up at them as they approached, defiant eyes in a sweat-beaded face contorted with pain.

  Grim chuckles among the imperials. Their blood was up with the unexpected victory they’d just enjoyed. One of them crouched at the man’s side.

  “That looks like your handiwork there, Mahmal.” He prodded at the wound and the privateer convulsed with a weak scream. “Half-arsed butcher’s chop like that.”

  “Fuck off. He’s down, isn’t he?”

  The crouched imperial cleared a mercy blade from his belt left-handed. “Yeah, but you gotta learn to—”

  “Hold up.” Ringil, stepping between them. “Let me talk to him.”

  The imperial shrugged and moved aside. Ringil took his place and squatted by the injured man’s side. He looked down into the sweating countenance. Saw under the blood and grime a face not much out of boyhood. He switched to Naomic.

  “You know who I am, son?”

  A shaky nod. The man shrank from him as best he could.

  “Not the demon blade …” he husked.

  It took Ringil a moment to understand that what he was hearing was a plea. He reversed his grip on the Ravensfriend, hefted it by the pommel, up where the man could see it.

  “This?”

  “No! Don’t kill me with that. Please, I—I beg. Not—that blade. Don’t take my soul.”

  “Hm.” Don’t waste this, Gil. Run with it. “You want to save your soul, son, you’d better talk to me. I want some answers. And, ehm, have a care—the demon that sleeps in this blade will know if you lie.”

  “Yes.” Voice faint and tight with the pain. “All right, yes. Ask me.”

  “Right, first off—what the fuck are you people doing up here? There’s nothing worth having in the Hironish, it’s the arse end of the League. Any coast-hugger captain knows that much. What’s this about?”

  “Came for you—Eskiath, outcast.” It was barely a whisper. “Capture for judgment—or kill.”

  “This many men? Come off it.” Gil hefted the Ravensfriend again. “I said tell the truth.”

  “No—wait, wait. It is truth.” The injured man, panting with panic as well as pain now, gulped a breath. “Word came—from Lanatray. The outlaw Eskiath, in company of Empire nobles, of men at arms. A voyage north. And now, with the war—”

  Ringil blinked. “War?”

  “—you are all proscribed … in League territory. We are ordered—detain all—all imperials …”

  “What fucking war?”

  The man flinched. “The imperials—they began it. They took Hinerion—with fire and force. They claimed offence—justification. The—old story.”

  Ringil closed his eyes. Jhiral—you twisted, arrogant little fuckwit, what have you done? What murderous, pimp-strutting piece of idiocy have you loosed on us all now?

  Aware that he was probably looking less than wholly dark and sorcerous, more just sick and tired, he opened his eyes again.

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Don’t know—couple … months … Maybe more—by the time word came.”

  War is declared and battle soon to be joined. The dark queen’s words floated back through his head. It had never occurred to him that she might be speaking literally.

  “How many men?” And then, on a sudden, grim suspicion. “How many ships?”

  “Five—five vessels—but two are now gone—took the prisoners. I—crew for Star of Gergis. Her muster is … eighty-six—”

  And the man-of-war in the harbor looked good to carry twice that. Plus three more hulls at anybody’s guess of tonnage and crew. It beggared belief.

  Five fucking ships. Father, you have really outdone yourself this time.

  Come off it, Gil. Let’s not let our family rancor run away with us. Gingren doesn’t swing the weight to accomplish this.

  The cabal, then?

  An open question. He still had little real sense of the cabal’s reach, the extent to which they might or might not govern behind the scenes in Trelayne or even the League in general. He’d met their agents on occasion, but had scant opportunity to interrogate them—the scuffles were always too brutal, the blades too unforgiving, his own unleashed rage too raw. Seethlaw had been using the cabal to consolidate power and influence in the northern cities, this much he did know. But he had no idea whether the cabal itself was a created tool of the dwenda’s hand, or simply an existing power structure Seethlaw had seen fit to subvert. He didn’t know if it had shriveled when Seethlaw went away and Ringil returned to the city to wreak vengeful havoc among those who’d abducted his cousin, or if Findrich and the others had merely hunkered down and waited out Gil’s poorly planned and clumsily executed revenge. Gil had warned off Risgillen’s incursion in Yhelteth last year in no uncertain term—

  I stand watch here! There is no way to this city except through me!—his own screams, shredding at his ears as the temple hall at Afamarag came collapsing about him, and Risgillen looked on appalled—The next time I see a dwenda, I cut its heart out and eat it still beating!

  —but he’d never had much doubt Seethlaw’s sister would continue to work whatever levers of power she could find in the north.

  The Aldrain are bringing the Talons of the Sun, Firfirdar’s whispering voice in his head like feathers falling, to light the skies once more with the glare from a myriad undeserved deaths …

  Never mind the cabal, what would the League itself do for a weapon like that? He’d heard Risgillen’s boasts, he’d listened to Archeth’s account of what she found at Khangset. He didn’t understand what exactly the Talons of the Sun was, but what it could do did not seem much in question. A weapon to set the city of Yhelteth aflame like felled and rotted timber. A weapon to bring the whole Empire to its knees.

  What would they not offer up to Risgillen for that?

  Five ships and a few hundred men to capture or kill your brother’s murderer, my otherworldly lady, bringer of victory fire? It’d barely count as a good faith down payment.

  He forced his attention back to the wounded privateer.

  “Who commands you in this?”

  The man quailed. “Klithren—Klithren of Hinerion.
Lately knight—knight commander under the war muster.”

  Ringil’s lip curled. “Oh, really?”

  He knew the sort. Scrambling for cheap title and advancement in the frantic, ill-discerning chaos of mobilization. The war against the Scaled Folk had seen a flood of noble younger sons into posts they were not remotely equipped to fill—not least one hot-eyed young Ringil Eskiath, come to think of it—and he supposed this time around would be no different.

  The injured man gulped air again. “They—they say Klithren—bears you ill will. Personal, they say. He—speaks your name with hate—to his pillow at night.”

  “How very romantic.” Ringil got to his feet. Saw how the privateer’s eyes darted desperately left and right among the towering figures of the enemies that surrounded him. Terror and quailing hope fighting for the upper hand on his tormented face. “All right, son. Rest easy, we’re done. Your soul is safe.”

  He made a show of putting aside the Ravensfriend. Saw the flood of relief on the young man’s face. He nodded at the imperial with the mercy blade.

  “Make it quick.”

  The imperial knelt, humming a distracted little tune to himself, and slit the man’s throat ear to ear. The privateer’s lips moved, gusting prayer. Blood welled up and filled the gash, spilled down onto the man’s chest and soaked down his jerkin to join the spreading stain from the wound at his hip. Hard to tell if the relief stayed on his face as he died—the imperial was good at his job and the young features went sullen and slack with blood loss, almost the moment the cut was made. His eyes fluttered closed, like doves settling to a perch, and then he was gone.

  Klithren.

  Gil brooded. The name meant nothing to him, but then these blood feud names rarely did. Kill enough men, you built a whole clan’s worth of bereaved brothers, fathers, sons, and comrades and they’d all rip out your entrails if they ever got the chance. The upside was that contrary to popular tales and legend, that chance almost never came. Few outside the nobility had the luxury of the spare time to track you down, let alone the fighting skills to do the deed, or the purse to hire it done. Oh, you might get called out to the odd inconvenient duel, or hear vague word of sneak assassins set on you, who anyway as often as not pocketed the purse and disappeared rather than take the trouble to fulfill their contract …