The Dark Defiles
Page 60
In the end, an unspoken agreement settled in between them—that he’d do what he liked in other beds as long as it was done far enough from the encampment not to embarrass her and wasn’t done all that often. Rules he found it easy enough to follow—Sadra, in a good mood, wasn’t something many whores could hold a candle to anyway. Day to day, he was happier than he’d ever thought he’d end up—well, he was alive for one thing—and if only the Dragonbane hadn’t gone stark raving berserk and run off like that, he reckoned even these vague misgivings would not trouble him half so much. Almost as if when Egar was still around, bitching noisily about life back on the steppe, it was that much easier to quell his own quiet nostalgia and get on with living.
Urann’s balls, Eg, where’d you go? What the fuck really happened to you out there?
They had Ershal’s story, of course, and evidence that seemed to back it up. He rode haggard and exhausted into camp on a limping mount that same night, startle-eyed and gabbling tales of southern mercenary friends of the Dragonbane, demons in the grass. Showed them the thin bleeding lash-mark wounds on his horse’s limbs and lower flanks. The scene of slaughter he led them back to the next morning bore him out, was like something out of a tale, and the shaman certainly made the most of it.
It is as I always thought. The Dragonbane has sold himself to the southerner’s demon god. He has angered the Sky Dwellers with his corrupt foreign ways. How else to explain such an atrocity worked on the flesh and blood of the Skaranak …
So forth.
None of it made a lot of sense, if you stopped to actually think about it. But you got used to that with shamanry. And in the end, whatever had really happened out there the previous night, the Dragonbane wasn’t around to tell his side of the story. No body, and no tracks out, or at least none that any of the scouts could find, but his gear was all gone. Staff-lance, saddle pack, knives—all vanished without trace like their owner, something that with every passing hour was starting to look dangerously like both sorcery and an admission of guilt. The only evidence Egar had ever been there at all was his Yhelteth-bred warhorse, lying dead on its side, feathered with Ershal’s arrows—it reared up at me and lashed out, eyes glowing with fire, gifted with demonic speech, cursing me in the southern tongue so my heart chilled at those alien syllables, he told them. What else was I to do but take it down?
And Poltar, nodding soberly along at his side.
Marnak grimaced at the memory. He’d never stood against Ershal’s rapid elevation to the clan mastery in the weeks that followed because it made all kinds of sense. The clan needed the continuity, they could ill afford a scramble for power between majority herd owners in the wake of all this spooky horror. The shaman was in favor of it, which by extension meant the gods were, too. Gant, the Dragonbane’s only other surviving brother, gave it the nod. And Ershal was, truth to tell, a pretty good candidate for the job. He was young, but shrewd with it, and he had an instinctive grasp of the political necessities that the Dragonbane had either never owned or maybe just never seen fit to bother with. He listened respectfully to the herd owners and other clan graybeards, he won over the younger men and women around the encampment with his prowess in archery and horsemanship. A couple of months in, and everyone was saying, in somewhat relieved tones, that he should have been the one right from the start …
Whoops from his men stirred him back to the present. They were calling out his name and laughing. Marnak blinked and looked around. Saw he’d been so sunk in recollection that he’d nearly ridden right past their destination.
The Feathered Nest.
Three stories high, cheap brickwork and timber daubed with Tethanne script in red, the whole structure sagging alarmingly to the left—one of these days he was going to wake up here and find himself buried under rubble. A couple of underemployed working girls slouched about outside on the porch, calling out to passersby and flaunting themselves tiredly. They were kohled up in what they fondly imagined was the Yhelteth fashion, and their slightly grubby robes approximated harem-wear, more or less. There was the customary joke in the name of this place, of course, a double meaning just like most of the other whorehouses in town. But the joke was in Tethanne; it didn’t translate very well into Majak, and he’d grown tired over the years of explaining it to fellow carousers who didn’t really care one way or the other.
He reined in, harder than strictly necessary, brought his horse’s head around to the hitching rail. Swung a leg up and over with a show of Skaranak horseman insouciance, skidded down out of his saddle look-no-hands. His boots hit the dirt and sent up little puffs of dust, he tried not to grunt as the impact snagged in his knees. A couple of the girls made oohing sounds, but their hearts weren’t really in it. Horseman wanker tricks. He guessed they saw this shit nine times before breakfast most days.
He made an effort for his men. “All right, lads. Let’s get out of the saddle and right back into the saddle, eh?”
Ready roars of approval. One man whooped and leapt up onto the rail, balanced there on dipping, twisting legs, and then commenced prancing back and forth with arms spread wide. The porch girls unfolded, yawning, from their posts. He jumped down grinning into their arms.
“Open up girls, here we come,” crowed the man at Marnak’s side. “Going to get me some of that imperial pussy!”
Yeah, that’s what you think, Marnak thought sourly.
IN FACT, THERE WERE YHELTETH WHORES TO BE HAD AT THE FEATHERED Nest, but not many of them, and they cost a lot more than most Majak herdsmen were willing or able to pay. The majority of the Nest’s customers settled quite happily for local girls made up to look the part. Most of them wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference anyway.
Marnak could tell the difference.
He sat sprawled among the silk drapes of a top-floor room, trying to separate his nostalgia from his lust. They’d plied him with wine downstairs while he waited—he was still working his way through a colossal goblet of the stuff now—and he hadn’t eaten much since breakfast, so he was pretty giddy. He set down the drink with exaggerated care on a stool beside the bed. Loosened his belt a bit, felt a soggy grin creep into his mouth.
“What’s keeping you, girl?” he called out in Tethanne. “Not shy, are you?”
“Not really, no.”
Tall, shadowy frame in the doorway, a stiffly braided mane of hair that made her taller still, and she wasn’t dressed much differently from him. Boots and leather breeches, a jerkin buckled about with gear. The voice was chocolate dark and deep, court-bred tones with a command rasp beneath. Marnak came up off the bed like a scalded cat.
“Who the fuck are you? What—”
His voice dried up as she stepped into the light. Jet-black features, eyes that threw back the candle glow in a contemptuous swirl like bandlight hitting well water a long way down. Knives sheathed in some weird upside-down fashion, but the hilts were …
“I … know you,” he whispered.
She stepped further into the room, put her hands on her belt. “Probably, you do. There were never very many like me.”
“You’re, uh,” his mouth was dry from the wine, “Flaradnam’s daughter, aren’t you? I saw you at the memorial gathering in Yhelteth. I, uhm, I marched with your father. On the northern expeditionary. I saw him die.”
“And you were at Gallows Gap after.” She nodded. “Where you collected the long scar above your eye. Awarded the white silk three times in as many years, promoted to line commander in fifty-four, offered another sizable promotion after the war, resigned your commission and came back here instead. Trusted lieutenant to the rightful Skaranak clanmaster until he disappeared in sixty-one; getting along fine with his not-so-rightful successor today. You see, I know all about you, Marnak Ironbrow. The only thing I don’t know is whether or not you had a hand in kicking the Dragonbane out.”
“Fuck you.” Up from his belly, without thought.
A thin white smile split her ebony face. “I’ll take that as a no.”
But also, he wasn’t going to kid himself, it was those curiously empty churned-light eyes, it was the way she stood. He recalled how Flaradnam had fought in the Wastes, the cold methodical strength and fury that drove him, and he thought he saw an echo of it in the woman before him.
“What do you want with me, Kiriath?” he growled.
“That’s better,” she said.
THEY SAT ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE BED, EACH WITH A LEG DRAWN UP SO they could face—and watch—each other. Heavy boots and buckles pressing down into the brightly colored silk sheets, leaving grit and mud traces. Not quite the congress the Skaranak veteran must have been anticipating when he came in here, and the tension in his face suggested he was still adjusting. Neither of them had relinquished their knives at any point and there was a telltale immobility to their hands as they talked. If there was trust in the room, it was smoke-thin and floating as yet.
“Dead?” Marnak asked grimly.
Archeth nodded. “Killing a dragon in the Wastes. He saved my life doing it. Which is why I’m here. He left me a blood debt to honor.”
She watched for signs of emotion, knew she’d probably not see much. For a people famed as berserkers in battle, the Majak came off oddly impassive when they dealt with loss. If Marnak planned to weep for the Dragonbane, he wouldn’t do it here.
The Skaranak grunted. “Could not have asked for a better death, then.”
You didn’t see what was left of him, she wanted to say, but kept it stowed. And anyway, maybe he was right. Marnak probably knew more about the way the Dragonbane had felt than she ever would.
“He was coming here, Ironbrow,” she said. “Coming to kill the shaman Poltar and his usurper brother Ershal, the same way he dealt with the others when they jumped him with hired help at his father’s grave.”
Marnak’s face might have been stone. “Is that right?”
Near enough, it is. That revenge on the shaman and his brother were always incidental to their homeward trek wasn’t something the Ironbrow needed to know. Let’s keep it simple, Archidi. Blood simple.
She smiled across the bed at the Majak graybeard. “That’s right. And now it falls to me to accomplish vengeance on the Dragonbane’s behalf. And I would like your help.”
Long quiet amid the silks, while Marnak looked broodingly at her. Out in the street beyond the drapes at the window, she heard horses clop and jingle past. Footfalls on the stair. Uncontrolled laughter came up through the floor from some room where people were apparently having a lot more fun than in here.
“You are an outlander,” he said finally. “You’re not even human.”
“On my mother’s side, I am actually. But I take your point. Here I am, asking you to side with a complete stranger against your clan, and on no better evidence than said stranger’s word. That’s a big ask. But tell me this, Ironbrow—what do I stand to gain from lying to you?”
He glowered. “Yhelteth manipulates all it comes into contact with, and the Kiriath in turn dangle and dance the Empire like a child’s puppet. This is what I saw throughout my time in the south. How should I guess what benefit the Black Folk might see in stirring up the Skaranak? Perhaps your aim is to weaken us, to feed us in pieces to your citified Ishlinak lapdogs as incentive for some political favor or other.”
“The Black Folk are all gone,” she told him quietly, and for the very first time, the pain as she said it was muted and remote. “They took ship at An-Monal, the year after the war ended. I am the last of my kind.
It seemed to mean something to him—he sketched a gesture at her she didn’t recognize. Fumbled a bit with his Tethanne phrasing.
“Honored word to those in Sky Home that, uhm, well, the gods, uh, your god …” He shook his head, took up his goblet, and raised it. “Look, whatever. I honor your clan’s passing. We had heard it before now, from Skaranak warriors coming home. The Black Folk gone away, sunk in the fiery crater. I, uh, I mourn with you those who have passed from this world.”
She cleared her throat. “Thank you. In fact, I don’t think they’re dead. Just somewhere else. Just … gone.”
He shrugged. “The dead also are just somewhere else. The Dragonbane is in Sky Home, your father is wherever the honorable slain of your people go. We mourn only because we may no longer reach them.”
“So you believe me?”
“About the Dragonbane’s passing?” Marnak frowned into his wine. “Seems that I do, yeah. But that doesn’t mean anything else you’re saying here is true.”
“In all the time that you served with him, did my father ever lie to you? Did any Kiriath you served with?”
“That I know of, no. But how would I know for sure?” She saw him hesitate, saw in his eyes the moment he started to believe. “You’re saying the Dragonbane’s brothers came to their father’s tomb with mercenaries in tow, aiming to murder him? That’s what he told you?”
“Yes. All but the one called Gant, apparently. Egar said he never showed. They told him Gant would approve the outcome but would not involve himself. That sound about right?”
She watched him nod, slow and bleak.
“The Dragonbane told me you rode out to his father’s tomb with him that night, but he sent you back to the encampment before sunset. Is that true?”
Another reluctant nod.
“He told me Ershal murdered his warhorse with arrows. Put out its eye with one of them. Is that true?”
“Yeah.” Very quietly, not looking at her. “Looked like it from what I saw at the scene the next day.”
“Right. Well, the way Egar told it to me, Ershal was all set to follow that up by putting a shaft through his eye as well. Only then Takavach showed up.” She held down a brief shiver, legacy of the meeting on the steppe. “You know, the Salt Lord?”
The Majak made a ward, absently. “We don’t call him that out here. That’s League stuff. Dark Court worship. But yes, I know who you mean.”
“Yes, well this Takavach apparently saved his life. Took Ershal’s next arrow out of the air in midflight, summoned up some kind of killer spirits from the grass to take down the brothers—”
“From the grass?” She saw how still he’d grown.
“Yeah. Grass demons. Or something. The grass came to life, he said. Clawed down his brothers, choked them to death. Ershal only just made it out.”
Marnak Ironbrow, staring at her, rather the way he had when she first walked in. She saw the growing acceptance in his eyes.
“Describe the fight,” he snapped. “How many did the Dragonbane account for?”
“Of his brothers, none at all.” She sifted back through the memories, the endless times they’d sat and Egar had told her the tale, sometimes in his cups, sometimes hungover, sometimes simply sober, over and over again, as if seeking from her some obscure absolution. “The grass took them. But he took down three out of the four freebooters they brought with them. The fourth fled, I believe …”
Let her voice fade out on the last word, as Marnak threw himself to his feet and stalked to the window. He stood with his back to her, facing the draped silk as if he could see through it to the night outside.
“We looked for him,” he said tightly. “Tracked his mount back to Ishlin-ichan, but we were a day too late. Fucking half-Ishlinak southern jackal, out of Dhashara they said, but none knew his name or would give it to us easily, anyway. By the time we learned more, he was long gone, probably back home or into the Empire lands beyond.”
“That’s convenient.”
A low growl. “Ershal swore the sellswords were at the Dragonbane’s command, hired out of the south to kill his brothers. That the Dragonbane sent for them to meet him at their father’s tomb, and sprang an ambush when they arrived. I—”
H
e shook his head.
“You didn’t believe that shit for a minute,” she suggested.
“I rode with him to the grave.” He turned to face her now, and the struggle was gone from his eyes. “I saw nothing to indicate he planned a brother slaying. I saw no sellswords, or their horses. I saw nothing in his face. I knew, I fucking knew it was a lie. But the Dragonbane was gone. Vanished.”
“Yeah. Taken under Takavach’s wing. Someday, when we’ve got time, I’ll tell you what for. It’s a fine tale.”
He nodded.
“Two years,” he said quietly. “You know, Poltar’s a twisted piece of shit, more than ever since he got his hands on some real power. No one’d weep if he dropped dead tomorrow. But Ershal—whatever he did against Eg—in the two years since that time, I’ve never seen him put a foot wrong. I hate to say it out loud, but he’s a better clan master than the Dragonbane ever was.”
“That so?” Archeth got up off the bed. Straightened her jerkin and the harness that held her knives. She faced the burly Skaranak warrior, impassive. “See, that’s a pity. Because I’m going to slit his fucking throat.”
CHAPTER 54
ingil peered into the opened casket. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this.
The Illwrack heirloom blade—what he could make out of it—seemed unremarkable. It had the same basic form as the long swords the dwenda carried, though perhaps a bit broader and heavier looking. But at the handling end, it stopped looking anything like a useful weapon at all. The crosspiece of the guard sloped sharply downward at either side, leaving a grip space only the narrowest of hands could have settled comfortably into. And in defiance of any useful purpose Gil could imagine, the underside was lined with small barbed spikes that would gouge chunks out of the flesh of anyone attempting to actually hold and wield the sword. As if that were not enough, below the guard, instead of grip or pommel, there was only what looked like the naked tang of the blade above, but twisted and sharpened into a lengthy, coiled, and inward-pointing spike.