The Dark Defiles

by Richard K. Morgan

  “You hear that? This isn’t a blunderer, Archidi, it’s a fucking dragon. Whole other story. They’re smart, easily as smart as warrior caste. We only got ours over that cliff in Demlarashan because we’d already done it some serious damage, and it was going mad from the pain.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “I suggest for the moment that we sit tight.” The Dragonbane was peering through the window frame again. She heard him draw a sharp breath, then he pitched his voice loud, for the others in the ruins around them. “Brace up, lads—here it comes. It’s going to sniff around here a bit, try screaming to scare us out, and if that doesn’t work it’ll try to tear its way in. Don’t get shaken, don’t expose yourselves, unless it’s on my word. That clear?”

  A thin and shaky chorus of assent.

  “Good. Then today’s the day we kill ourselves a dragon! Anybody up for that?”

  A couple of hard-driven cheers floated loose in the ruined spaces. She thought she recognized Alwar Nash’s voice among them.

  “I said—do you want to kill a fucking dragon?”

  More yells, and more punch behind them this time. Egar eased up out of his crouch and filled his lungs.

  “I can’t hear you! Do you—or do you not—want to kill—a motherfucking dragon?”

  A solid roar in answer.

  “Then chant with me. Loud, so that fucking bitch can hear you. Make it understand who we are!” Egar stood erect, made a fist. Punched it savagely into the air above his head. “Dragon Bane! Dragon Bane! Dragon Bane!”

  And the chant came back at him, from every throat in the ruin, even those who spoke no Tethanne and might not know what the syllables meant.

  “Dragon Bane! Dragon Bane! Dragon Bane!”

  Out of nowhere, she found herself with them, chanting, veins pulsing in her head with the force of it. The pain in her wound forgotten, driven out by this rising force. Faster now, as Egar forced the tempo up.

  “Dragon Bane! Dragon Bane! Dragon Ba—”

  The dragon screamed and shocked against the ruin.

  It was like being back aboard Lord of the Salt Wind that night—seemingly solid planking under her feet, cabin bulkheads around her, all rendered suddenly flimsy by the force and roar of the storm outside. The wall she crouched against shivered with the impact, the shriek went through her head like pain. Men yelled and yelped behind her. The reek of sandalwood was overpowering; it made her dizzy just to breathe it.

  The Dragonbane grinned, like a man facing down bonfire heat.

  The echoes died away. Powder sifted down from the stonework above. Elsewhere, she heard the fall of larger rubble pieces. And then heavy, crunching footfalls on the other side of the wall. Egar glanced out of the window and nodded to himself.

  “Everybody all right?” he called. “Sound off.”

  Echoing calls through the architecture. A Majak voice, raised in evident fury. She heard the other Majak laugh.

  “What’s going on?”

  Egar shook his head. “He pissed himself. Pretty angry about it, too.”

  He crabbed a couple of yards across the remnants of flooring to where the wall took a right-angle turn. Got up against the stonework beside a window on that side. Tipped a gaze outside. Archeth angled her head by inches, peered out of her own window, saw no movement, saw nothing but the sea of rubble.

  “No sign,” she hissed across at the Dragonbane. “Where the fuck is it?”

  He nodded sideways. “Gone around the back. Looking for a better way in.”

  “Can we make a run for it, then?” Though her flesh quailed at the thought. “Get down into the pit before it …”

  Her voice dried up as he shook his head. She found herself oddly relieved. Egar crabbed back to her side and sank to a crouch. He spoke absently, with his head tilted back against the stone, as if checking the sky above the ruin for portent.

  “That’s five hundred yards, Archidi. It’d cut us down before we got halfway. I’ve seen these fuckers cough venom better than eighty feet. Got better aim than a tavern urchin spitting on a bet, too.”

  “But—”

  Violent crashing sounds from the rear of the ruin. The dragon shrieked again. Flurry of calls between the men. Egar bounced back up, shouted across the commotion.

  “Report! Anybody back there see what’s going on?”

  “It found a gateway,” someone yelled in Tethanne. “Tried to smash its way through.”

  “Yeah? How’d it do?”

  Another voice. “Went away with a sore fucking head.”

  Laughter, uneasy at first, but gaining strength as the men grabbed on to it. Alwar Nash’s even, court-mannered tones came through the sounds of forced merriment.

  “The beast got its head inside, my lord. It dislodged some stonework from the gateway arch, but had to withdraw. It is still outside.”

  “Thank you. You all hold steady back there, I’m coming across. No one move unless you have to.” Egar dropped his voice and murmured to her. “Dragon-proof walls, eh? Got to hand it to these dwenda architects. I guess if you’re immortal, you just naturally build to last.”

  “Yeah.” Her mouth was dry. She cleared her throat. “Listen, what if we just stay put? Wait for it to lose interest and go look for something else to eat?”

  “If it lives in the pits—and I reckon it probably does, there’s a lot of warmth around here—then that isn’t going to happen. This is its home range, Archidi. We’re intruders. There’s only one way for it to understand that, only one way it knows how to behave. It isn’t going anywhere. It’ll tear this place down around us, or it’ll starve us out.”

  “But we’re provisioned. How long can it just … hang around?”

  Egar scowled. “Long enough. On the expeditionary, your father told me they reckoned these things probably only need to eat two or three times a year. But when they do find food, they’ll stick at it like a clan master trying to sire a son.” A shrug. “Anyway, even if it did lose its appetite, decide to forgive the intrusion and go back to bed, that still puts it right back in the pits. However you look at it, Archidi, the fucker’s in our way. Which makes it a bit of luck for us it found that gateway back there.”

  She stared at him. “Luck?”

  “Yeah. Like commanding officers are given to saying, we’ve got a point of engagement now. Just needs someone to go out there and persuade our scaly friend to stick her head back in again.” He grinned lopsidedly at her. “Got a coin?”

  SHE DID, IN FACT—A WELL-WORN THREE-ELEMENTAL PIECE THAT HAD BY some miracle escaped notice when she was frisked prior to boarding Lord of the Salt Wind in Ornley; by some other freak chance, it had not been washed from her pockets when they wrecked. The Warhelm’s spiders found it in her ruined clothes, it seemed, when they took them away, and she woke a couple of mornings later with one of the little articulated iron creatures perched on her chest, holding the coin out in one pincer a couple of inches away from her nose. Struck image of Akal the Great’s head, looming huge and blurry close in her field of vision. She tried groggily to brush it away, but the iron spider came back, insistently, and in the end, with much bad grace, she snatched the coin up and threw it across the room. The spider scuttled off after it, brought it back again. She threw it once more. They both went around a couple more times before Archeth accepted she was being childish and held on to the coin until the spider went away

  It’s not like I can spend it anywhere around here, she complained to Tharalanangharst as she dressed in her new clothes.

  Nor can I, said the Warhelm tartly. Like so many other things, it will have to wait until your safe return to Yhelteth.

  Now she pulled it out of her pocket, offered it glinting on her palm. The Dragonbane looked startled for a moment, then he smiled.

  “Joking, Archidi. Just joking. You can stay here.”

  “Yeah, like fuck.”

  She stowed the coin and crept after him through the jagged maze of masonry. He tried to wave her back, but she forked
an obscene gesture at him. He rolled his eyes. They crouched and crawled and clambered through the shattered structure of the building, losing height as they moved. Pale, cold light filtered down from the opened roof space above. She thought she heard the dragon scrape against a wall somewhere outside. Men watched them both from their various vantage points, and she saw them murmur to each other and point.

  The gateway Nash had mentioned came into view, broad enough for a carriage and horses in width, but filled at base with debris and reduced to not much more than a couple of yards in height. The spiced reek was there, strong again, the same spikes of aniseed and cardamom through the sandalwood. Light from outside spilled inward under the arch, left long, dagger shadows across the rubble.

  She spotted Alwar Nash crouched one floor up, huddled with another Throne Eternal in a corner where an interior wall had slumped sideways and dumped its various floors like a hand of bad cards thrown down. She prodded the Dragonbane’s shoulder—he was fixed on the gateway and its shadows—and pointed. They moved carefully up the sloping mess of cracked tile and stone, reached the two imperials, and hunkered down beside them. Nash bowed briefly to her. Pointed downward at the gate with the pommel end of his broadsword.

  “It got its head inside there and twisted—you can see the marks where it gouged chunks out of the arch stones. Tried to tear the rest down with a claw, but there was no space for leverage. Structure was too strong, I guess.” He gazed up and around at the ruined walls. “Whoever built all this knew what they were—”

  “Hsst!” The other Throne Eternal, gesturing. “It’s back!”

  Shadows moved, under the gateway arch. There was a sound she knew, expelled breath like the shaken tail of some colossal rattlesnake, then ragged dragging noises, and the rubble just outside the gate shifted.

  “All right,” said Egar softly.

  “What is it?” Nash wanted to know. “What’s it doing?”

  “Digging,” she told him. “Seen one do it at Shenshenath. Going to try to clear out enough of that debris so it can get inside, or maybe just dig up the foundations and topple the wall. They’re smart like that. Eg?”

  No response. She looked at him, saw him staring down at his hands where they held the staff lance midway along the burnished alloy shaft. It was as if he’d forgotten what the weapon and the hands that held it were for.

  She nudged him. “Eg. What’s next here?”

  He stirred. Hefted the lance in both hands and looked around at her. “Archidi, I told you all about that piece of shit Poltar, didn’t I?”

  She blinked. “The shaman? Sure, uh … Sold you out to your brothers up on the steppe, got them all fired up to kill you or chase you out. But—”

  “That fuck needs killing, Archidi.” He held her gaze. “One way or the other.”

  Something dripped like melting ice in her belly. “We talked about this already, Eg. Him and your brother Ershal. First order of business, soon as we get to Ishlin-ichan, we’ll track your people down. You got my word. But, uh … got to kill this fucking thing first, right?”

  He sniffed hard. “Yeah, all right.”

  She watched him cock his head, listen for a moment to the stony scrabbling sounds from outside. His face was unreadable. But when he looked up at his companions, his tone was as breezy as a man discussing a horse he might buy.

  “Okay, she sounds pretty busy out there, plenty of noise to cover us. Nash—and you, what’s your name?”

  The other Throne Eternal bowed. “Shent, my lord. Kanan Shent.”

  “Shent, right. Hope you’re handy with that ax. You two follow us down, you got the lady Archeth’s back.”

  Grim nods from both men.

  “I’m going out as bait—”

  “You are not!” she snapped.

  “Archidi—”

  “If anyone goes as bait, it’s me. I’m smaller, I’m lighter on my feet, I don’t have that staff lance to trip over—”

  “Archidi, I used to do this for a living, remember?”

  “My lady—”

  “Nash, shut the fuck up.” She kept her eyes on the Dragonbane. “Eg, I’m in command here. I’ll decide the battle appointments.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Archidi. You don’t.”

  “Oh, three and a half fucking years fighting the Scaled Folk, and now I find out I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s funny, I led—”

  “It’s not the same thing! It’s a fucking dragon!”

  “Hsst!”

  The digging noises outside had stopped. They froze in place, listening. Long beats of silence—she watched the shadows coming in the rubble-drowned gateway, saw them shift about. The snorting, rattling breath outside seemed to nose up to the wall they crouched against. Scrape of scales on masonry, a sudden explosive snort.

  The digging resumed.

  She fished in her pocket, brought out the coin.

  “All right, then,” she hissed. “We settle it like this. Heads or manes. One toss, whoever wins goes outside.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. Put out his hand.

  “Give me that,” he said. “Call it.”

  She swallowed hard. “Heads.”

  “Right.”

  They all watched intently as the Dragonbane tossed the three-elemental piece in the air—caught it in the cup of his hand—hefted it—slapped it across onto the back of his other hand where he still held on to the staff lance—took the covering hand away—

  “Manes.” Nodding down at the worn horse-head motif on the upward face. “Can we get on with this now?”

  He offered the coin back to her. She glowered at him, certain she’d just been duped, unable to quite work out how.

  “Fucking keep it.”

  “Okay, thanks.” A wink as he stowed the coin away. “Reckon I’ll blow that down at Angara’s place, soon as we get back.”

  “Very funny.”

  He knew she’d been a customer at Angara’s herself, back in the day, because she’d let it slip one drunken campfire night on campaign in the south. He knew also what crazy sums she’d paid, for the watertight anonymity and discretion the establishment offered. He’d rocked back from the campfire and whistled low when she told him.

  Now he patted the pocket where the coin had gone. “Yeah, should buy me at least a thimble full of ale and thirty seconds with Angara’s best whore.”

  “Are we going to fucking do this or what?”

  They moved down the sloping, fallen flooring as one. Stopped on the rubbled ground a good distance from one side of the gate. Egar crept forward and squatted, peered cautiously out. A satisfied grunt. He came back.

  “Right, it’s busy digging. Nash, you get on the other side of this gate. Archidi, you stay here with Shent, that way we hit it from both sides. Now I’m not planning to be out there long, so be ready. Soon as that cunt pokes its head in here, you hit it with everything you’ve got. Get to an eye if you can, or try for wounds around the mouth. Main thing is—hurt it as much as you can. You cause enough pain, it’s going to start doing stupid things, and that’s when we get to kill it.”

  They moved up on the gateway. Nash hefted sword and shield, drew breath. Scuttled rapidly across to the far side and crouched there with evident relief. Egar waited a moment longer, looked back at Archeth and grinned.

  “Pay attention,” he said. “I’m only going to do this once.”

  He went with careful steps to the edge of the gateway arch. She saw him drop his left hand from the staff lance, hold the weapon loose and balanced at his right side. He lowered himself into a crouch for the sprint. She saw him summon breath.

  And the rubble floor caved in under them all.

  CHAPTER 42

  here were times he dreamed that the cage had taken him after all; that he made some impassioned speech confessing guilt and repentance on the floor of the Hearings Chamber, and offered himself up for the sentence instead. That the Chancellery law-lords in their enthroning chairs and finery murmured behind their
hands, deliberated among themselves for a space, and finally nodded with stern paternal wisdom. That the manacles were unlocked and his wife and children set free. He saw it with tears in his eyes and a sobbing laugh on his lips, saw Sindrin kneel on the cold marble, weeping and hugging at little Shoy and Miril, while Shif junior just stood and looked back at him across the chamber with mirrored tears standing in his own young eyes.

  Then he woke, to his chains and the memory of what had really been done.

  Sprayborne tilted on her anchors beneath him, yearned seaward on the currents from the river’s mouth. The damp cold of dawn seeped in through the portholes over his head and brought with it from the mudflats a stench like death.

  At other times, maybe triggered by that reek, it was nightmare that took him—he dreamed, keening deep in his throat as he slept, that the rusted locks fell off the gibbet cages where they’d been heaved over the side and come to rest on the estuary’s silted bed, and now Shoy and Miril swam free, glitter-eyed and skeletal in the murky water, rising into the light to knock at Sprayborne’s hull and call for their father to come out and play …

  Living punishment, as severe as the law allows, pronounced law-lord Murmin Kaad grimly into the anticipatory quiet of the Hearing Chamber. Meted out to reflect the severity of your sins against the Fair City and its allies, and to serve as clear example to others. Shif Stepwyr, you will see your bloodline extinguished, you will be imprisoned in the vessel you used to commit your crimes, and you will be given the rest of your natural span to reflect upon the evil you have done in this world.

  He screamed when he heard it, and sometimes, waking from the dream, he echoed those screams again. Screamed and tore at his fetters until he bled from the old scarred wounds once more, screamed as he had in the Hearing Chamber, for the Salt Lord to come for him, for the whole fucking Dark Court to come if they willed it, to take his soul, to take him away, to any kind of torment but this, if he might just first pay back the rulers of Trelayne for the justice they had meted out.

  No one came.

  Four years now, as near as he could reckon it, since the last of his children’s weakened cries ceased and he knew he could count them dead. Since he heard the splash of the gibbet cages thrown overboard, and then the steady grating back and forth of the band saw they used to cut through Sprayborne’s masts and topple them. Four years trying to sell his soul to every demon god whose name he knew, and no takers yet. Four years, chained the same way his ship was chained, in a space meant to break body and mind alike.