The Dark Defiles

by Richard K. Morgan

  He shakes his head groggily. We have to stop meeting like this, Risgillen.

  We will. This will be the last time, I promise you. Can you not feel how thin, how few, are the pages that remain in your story?

  He reaches, experimentally, for the ikinri ‘ska. Finds no help there. Like drawing on a krin twig and finding nothing in your lungs but wood smoke. Like reaching for the Ravensfriend, finding only an empty scabbard instead.

  Risgillen grins at him again. Oh, don’t worry. We have a sword for you. Lathkeen Talonreach will be down with it shortly.

  She nods up to the brow of the hill to where, well, something’s going on, that’s for sure. But it’s a something Ringil can’t quite get his eyes to focus on. He guesses at smoke and lightning, a writhing tentacular motion within, and it’s dark, like the heart of a storm, but it hurts like bright light to look at directly and …

  It has taken awhile, you see, Seethlaw’s sister presses gently on. To prepare. To recover the sword from the fire you set; to understand what you did, to cleanse the blade of its contact with that … gaunt, joyless ape you unleashed it upon.

  See, Slab—he clings to the sour shreds of humor, it’s really all he has right now—nobody ever really liked you, not even this demon bitch.

  But time here is—Risgillen gestures around—flexible, as you’ll know. Here there is no hurry. And this time we have assembled the pieces with all due care. This time, we do not underestimate.

  That’ll be a first.

  Yes, well the signs have been complicated. Tangled. Reading them has been tricky, trickier than we are accustomed to. When the Black Folk came to this world, they disrupted it. They damaged the eternal norms. They were Other, they did not belong. In five thousand years, the chaos and confusion they sewed has still not abated. Heroes no longer stand forth clearly the way they once did, the way they were when we reigned in the real world. They are sullied, muddied at the edges, hard to recognize or judge. Seethlaw thought he saw a new hero in you, but what he truly saw, I think, was this. She gestures at the standing stones around them. Your transfiguration. This place was Cormorion’s, you see. Built and bound in Aldrain power for him alone, the Last Dark King. His strength and refuge in the Grey Places. For a while it looked as if it might become yours in turn, that you might take on that mantle. But now I think those were simply the forward echoes of this moment, the moment in which Cormorion steps out of shadow once more, out of the glory of the Aldrain past, and is mantled once more, in your flesh.

  Turns out you aren’t a hero after all, Ringil. You’re just a receptacle.

  At odds with the harshness in her tone, she reaches up and strokes his cheek where the scar that Seethlaw gave him runs.

  He was my brother’s great love. Cormorion Ilusilin Mayne, Cormorion the Radiant. None among your kind who came before or after, in all our years of skulking at the margins of human myth and legend, ever touched Seethlaw Illwrack the way Cormorion did. Perhaps he thought you would with time, but, well … She shrugs. You see how fitting this is. I honor my brother’s memory, avenge the love he offered and you spurned, and bring back the true focus of his heart, at one and the same time. Revenge and redemption in a single act. It has taken me until now to understand the elegance of it all.

  He coughs up a mangled laugh. You’re right, your eternal norms really took a knock, didn’t they? Redemption? Revenge? Nothing’s ever that clean, you dizzy fucking bitch.

  No, it will be. It will be the way it once was. Look out there.

  She lifts one sweeping arm at the downslope. He looks despite himself, sees a gathered host of dwenda, thousands strong. Rank upon rank of black garbed, cloaked, smooth-helmed, faceless figures, weapons shouldered or sheathed, immobile as statues, all facing this way. The helms are total, a seamless match for the black armor suits, obliterating any trace of the features behind their smoked-glass visors.

  But he knows they’re watching him, and the knowledge is ice on his spine.

  He sniffs and forces out the cold. Forces a combat grin.

  If they’re all waiting on me to serve them the way I did your brother, I’m going to end up pretty fucking chafed.

  Risgillen is not rising to the bait. She shakes her head.

  They await their old warlord, not you. His coming has unified the Aldrain as nothing since we were driven out. And when he returns to them, they’ll follow him out of the Grey Places and into battle against the ramshackle excuse for an Empire the Black Folk cobbled together in our absence, and they will crush it.

  I don’t think your troops are going to like Yhelteth weather, Risgillen. All that glaring sunlight, all those bright blue skies. They fucked up down there once before, remember?

  She smiles. But there will be no more blue skies, Ringil. Did you not know this? The Drowned Daughters of Hanliagh are stirring, ready to sink the world in shadow again. And Clan Talonreach prepares even now to give them a good hard rutting where it will do most good. Another sweeping gesture, this time up to the brow of the hill and the writhing darkness that squats there like a storm on a leash. Her voice grows animated. See, the Talons of the Sun, gathering force under the storm-callers’ hand. It is the herald of Cormorion’s coming, the clarion behind which the Aldrain will go to war. It is the means to take back, finally, what is ours by ancient right.

  He still can’t make out what the Talons of the Sun is exactly, but as he watches, blue light scribbles through the roiling black of its flanks, and a dwenda emerges. No helm, his pale face and long jet hair are exposed, and he’s close enough for Ringil to recognize.

  Lathkeen of Talonreach, last seen shrugging off the flesh that was once marine sergeant Shahn, like a whore at night’s end, wiping off her work face. His hands are gloved in black, he holds a long sword by its blade in the right, no rewards for guessing which sword that is, eh, Gil, and he’s got something else in his left—at first, Gil can’t quite make that out, either, but as the dwenda comes down the slope toward them, he realizes what it is, and his heart kicks against the bindings across his chest.

  It’s a spiked iron crown, and he’s seen it before.

  His own ghost wore it, seated opposite him at Hjel’s campfire, grinning like a skull.

  Lathkeen reaches the edge of the stone circle, passes the crown awkwardly to the same hand as the sword for a moment, and sketches a series of glyphs in the air before he steps over whatever invisible threshold exists there. The sword goes berserk. The tang lashes at the air like a demented serpent. Gil sees the storm-caller grimace and tighten his gloved grip on the blade.

  A little help? he snaps at Risgillen. Here, take this at least.

  She goes to him and takes the crown, bears it back to Ringil in both hands. Sets it at a jaunty angle on Gil’s head. Cold, slanting touch of the iron band across his brow. Risgillen stands back and looks him over.

  Suits you, she says somberly.

  Lathkeen has taken a fresh grip on the Illwrack sword, both hands this time. He raises it reverently a moment, as if offering it to the sky, then drives the blade down a foot into the ground of the stone circle, a couple of yards from where Ringil is bound. A cold plaintive cry breaks through the air, like some solitary gull lost over an endless leaden ocean. It’s impossible to tell where it comes from, it seems to sweep in on the wind from all corners of the sky. The sword trembles in the ground.

  That’s it, the storm-caller says. He’s here, no question.

  Risgillen gestures impatiently. Then what are we waiting for?

  Lathkeen shrugs. He uproots the sword again with loving care, carries it across to Ringil. The tang coils about, sharpened end scratching and prodding at the air. Ringil clenches his fists closed. Risgillen sees it and smiles. She nods at the cords binding his chest and one of them tugs itself loose under his arm, wraps around his left shoulder, and goes coiling rapidly downward, past his elbow, encircling his bared forearm and wrist, sprouting offspring vines that each seek out a finger and force his knuckles back one by one, straighten out
his whole hand and hold it poised to receive the sword.

  Firfirdar, if you were ever on my fucking side, now’d be the time to show up and demonstrate the fact.

  The Dark Court will not intervene here, says Lathkeen absently, as if Gil’s spoken aloud. They are not permitted that much power. None are since the world was written over, not even those who laid down the text in the first place. And your dominion of the ikinri ‘ska cannot help you here, either. Talonreach has it well in check.

  He jerks his chin up the slope at the storm of writhing motion and the dark that’s tethered there.

  Most of the clan is in attendance. Their combined will is bent upon you. I am not my cousin Atalmire, I do not run unnecessary risks.

  Ringil bares his teeth. Yeah well, your cousin Atalmire died squealing like a pig. I chopped him apart. Just so you know.

  A muscle twitches in Lathkeen’s bone-white face. Something dark and twisted rises cheering in Gil at the sight, as if he’d managed to drive a dagger point home in the storm-caller’s flesh.

  Harm—done.

  What else, aside from slaughter with sharp steel, are you really good for, Ringil Eskiath?

  What else indeed?

  Well, you will not die, the storm-caller says tonelessly. Not in the sense you understand the word, anyway. But you will be trapped for the lifetime of your flesh behind the eyes of Cormorion Ilusilin Mayne. I will ask him as a personal favor to track down your family and friends when he storms the world, and to give them exceedingly special treatment so that you can watch. You have, I believe, already seen something of our methods for dealing with those who defy us.

  He turns to Risgillen. Want to say anything?

  Just get it done.

  They put the sword against his open hand. It coils and grabs him around the palm. Wraps his bared forearm end to end, intimately warm and oddly slick. Rears up and stabs him somewhere above the wrist, gouges in between tendons and muscle. He can feel it in there digging deeper, sprouting barbs, but there’s curiously little pain. He sees Risgillen smile and jut her chin at him in farewell.

  Then the whole world wrenches sideways and down.

  CHAPTER 61

  he long runners heard her scream, and they seemed to pause as one. She saw long, smooth-skinned heads lean and twist in her direction, fanged mouths gape and grin. Felt their eyes fix on her running form as she closed the gap.

  Don’t know how smart they are, the Dragonbane had told her once. But they know a staff lance when they see one, and they’ll avoid them if they can. They know it’s better to take a man on foot than a rider and they’ll plan around doing that, too …

  No horse, no blades of any real length. With luck, she looked no more lethal than a warm meal on legs.

  The nearest steppe ghoul made a dismissive tilting motion with its head, went back to what it was doing—stomping through a group of yelling imperials. Looked like two men already down, another dragging himself from the fray with a shattered leg.

  Her men.

  She sprinted straight in.

  Unleashed Wraithslayer from ten yards out.

  The eye again, and this time she must have gotten lucky on penetration. The runner stumbled and went down like a tripped horse. Her men yelled triumph and stormed onto its thrashing body, hacking with ax and sword anywhere they could reach. Archeth tore past them without let, one trailing hand out to collect Wraithslayer from the air as it leapt back into her grip.

  Pick it up, Archidi. If this is going to work …

  She put on speed. Slipped behind a second ghoul backing up from staff lance thrusts, slashed hard at a cord muscled leg as she passed. Felt like she cut the tendon—no time to see for sure. Her main objective lay ahead.

  The Skaranak had left their horses to wander—they’d come when called, under any normal circumstance. But now they’d bolted riderless in all directions. Give thanks, Archidi, to whatever bad-tempered gods they keep in these parts, that at least some of us imperials aren’t that trusting. A half dozen of the Yhelteth thoroughbred warhorses were tethered along the side of the wagon, plunging and snorting with panic as they caught the scent of the runners and tried to tear free. Beyond them, smoke and pale flame rose from somewhere on the other side of the wagon—looked like someone had kicked the campfire apart in the fray. Archeth spotted her mount among the tied horses and ran in. No saddle or reins, of course, but … fuck it, she flung herself up and over the animal’s neck, settled astride it bareback, slashed Quarterless up and through the tether.

  The horse reared again, but she clung to the neck, muttered soothing into its ear. It wasn’t Idrashan—no horse was Idrashan, ye gods she missed that stallion—but it was Yhelteth bred and trained for war, and with a rider atop, it settled. She clucked and urged it about with her thighs, away from the wagon. Kept her balance barely, knives held wide. Scanned the action. Gaze racing across the grass expanse.

  There—and there—and there—they’d brought down the ghoul she’d hamstrung, were finishing it now, staff lances rising and falling like whaler’s harpoons. But four more runners slashed and stomped about the camp, reached and tore men limb from limb where they stood …

  “Right, you motherfuckers,” she muttered. “Now let’s see what you’ve got.”

  And kicked her horse into a charge.

  The first ghoul was easy—it had chased a Skaranak axman around a half-trampled yurt and tangled one arm awkwardly in the ropes. She stormed in on the horse and the runner panicked, tried to flail around and face the approaching threat, got itself tangled further. She put knives in its eyes while she was still twenty feet off, saw it stagger and go down shrieking, pawing at the damage and the sudden darkness. Up popped the axman, nodded breathless thanks, and—three! grunting! blows!—chopped the creature’s head apart. Archeth was already wheeling away, palms up and open, as if in prayer.

  Falling Angel, Laughing Girl—into her grasp as she rode down the second ghoul. Their blades were still daubed with gore from the wounds they’d torn themselves out of when she called. Their hilts thrummed against her palms like machinery levers on a fireship bridge. Deep vibration ran down through the muscles of her arms and into her chest, sat there like fresh strength. She almost choked on the feeling it set off in her guts, whooped for sheer joy at the lines of force it painted through her body and out across the steppe to the other, waiting knives.

  The next nearest runner spun about, away from the men it was harrying. Perhaps it heard her cry, perhaps it just felt the thunder of her horse’s hooves through the ground. It faced her, crouched to spring. She loosed Falling Angel, no time for careful aim, took the creature in the shoulder and staggered its pounce. Threw up her empty hand in demand and Wraithslayer was in it, as if dropped out of the sky. The ghoul flinched—twisting and pawing Falling Angel loose—Archeth grabbed the moment, rode in on the other side, got behind that long, shark-fanged head. She stabbed in left-handed, buried Laughing Girl to the hilt under the runner’s jaw, and hung on. The ghoul stumbled back, awkwardly off-balance, crashed against the horse’s flank. The horse reared and screamed, Archeth clung on with both legs—the collision of the two beasts had her pinned by one thigh anyway—reached around with Wraithslayer—yelled triumphant—dragged the blade back in a ragged, throat-opening gouge.

  “Think you’re something?” she heard herself snarl through gritted teeth, as the steppe ghoul collapsed backward and the horse wallowed, eyes rolling, almost down on its hind legs with the weight. She dragged back hard on both knives, tilted the huge, lolling head up against her “Think you’re dangerous? I was killing dragons before this, you fuck.”

  The steppe ghoul’s nearest eye rolled up, the jaw snapped shut on some feeding reflex, bit off a foot of lolling tongue between the fangs. She felt the life go out of the massive carcass, felt it shudder and slump. She pulled out her knives, held them aloft.

  Howled.

  If the long runners had ignored her before, she had their full attention now. Both the remaining ghou
ls abandoned the fight they were in, gaped for a moment, seemed to exchange a glance, and then came prowling rapidly toward her.

  “Yeah, you see me now, don’t you, motherfuckers?” she screamed as they closed. “You see me now!”

  She drew herself up on the horse’s back, knives poised. She felt their eagerness, those in her grasp and those waiting to be next. For one fleeting instant, she actually saw the connections, like lines of glowing hot wire snaking out from her mount and into the steppe grass around her. She almost stopped breathing with the shock and beauty of it. Waited rapt for the paths of the two attacking runners to converge—

  The left-hand steppe ghoul seemed to trip, as if the knife had already left her hand.

  Gray-fletched stick-thin spike, protruding magically from its thigh.

  So someone had finally gotten hold of a strung bow and quiver, gotten some space, grabbed breath to steady their aim …

  Hiss-thump and a second arrow joined the first. She heard men cheering. A third shaft and the long runner staggered sideways, went down still trying to drag itself forward on one leg. Archeth’s attention shuttled to the other ghoul. She saw it hesitate, look around—saw a pair of arrows spike its head, saw one take out the eye. Shriek of rage and pain, the creature reeled about, trying to find its new attackers. It got a chest and throat full of gray-fletched shafts for its trouble, crashed into the grass. Skaranak stormed in with lances to finish the job. The bowmen—she spotted them now, three men, striding purposefully out toward the left hand ghoul, short recurved bows held high, laying down a steady three-every-five-seconds hail of fire. The ghoul snorted and flailed about on the ground, finally gave up and lay still.

  The steppe seemed suddenly very quiet again.

  Archeth nudged her horse cautiously in. She got to the downed ghoul about the same time as the first of the Skaranak bowmen. They both watched the heavy, jerky rise and fall of the creature’s pincushioned side, listened to the stertorous snorts rasping from its throat. Blood ran down in stripes from a couple of the wounds the arrows had made, leaked copiously from the runner’s mouth. The Skaranak eased tension on his draw. He put up the arrow and the bow, stepped back, and made a gesture it took her a moment to understand.