The Dark Defiles (46 page)

The line of the coast thickened, grew visibly irregular. Cloud shredded apart off the scimitar gleam of the band, let in a low silvery light. Before long, you could start to make out the rise of hills along the shore, the textured detail of forest canopies and farmed fields, the mineral glint of escarpments and cliffs. The broad, familiar arms of the Trel delta spread to beckon him in and there, at the eastern extremity, the clustered lights of the city glimmered into view. He plumed smoke out into the wind, watched as it was snatched away again. Nodded at the lights as if in greeting.

Here I am again, you murderous whore. Just can’t give you up.

Two long, lean hulls ahead on the swells—privateer caravels riding picket for the estuary gap, clear notice of the war in progress and precautions taken accordingly. Ringil sensed the exact moment they were spotted, could almost see in his mind’s eye the sudden scramble to action stations aboard both vessels. Faint cries and yells, and a stampede of feet across decking drifted to his ears across the still night air. He couldn’t be sure if it was all just his imagination at work, or some stealthy new reach of the
ikinri ‘ska.
In any case, as he watched, one of the League ships came rapidly about and swung their way. He straightened up, flipped the last half inch of his twig over the rail, and headed for the companionway. Time to lend Nyanar some moral support.

As he walked down the main deck, he tilted his head back to where the yellow and black snake’s tongue pennants now fluttered at each mast tip.

Wonder when they’ll spot those.

Should sober them up a bit when they do.

To anyone with seasoned seafaring eyes,
Dragon’s Demise
was unmistakably an imperial vessel, but she was flying Trelayne colors, big and bold at the mainmast, and the League man-of-war he’d commandeered was right behind them, with
Sea Eagle’s Daughter
bringing up the rear and also flagged for Trelayne. You’d have to be pretty stupid not to read all of that for what it was—triumphant capture of Empire shipping, and the eagerly awaited next chapter in the privateer success story that must have begun when
Pride of Yhelteth
and her attendant captor vessels showed up a few days earlier. They’d be all set to cheer these new captives into harbor—until someone spotted that yellow and black.

He met Klithren at the foot of the companionway to the helm deck. The mercenary looked hungover and shaky on his feet, which Ringil supposed he more than likely was. Pretty much an ideal state of affairs, too, given what was coming next.

“Ready?” Gil asked him.

“I already fucking told you I was.”

“Good man.” He clapped Klithren hard on the chest and shoulder, grinned as he saw the mercenary’s face wobble in the gloom. “They’re not going to risk any closer than hailing distance, so it should be easy enough to sell. Just stick to what we agreed and try to look … well, no—you already do. Just keep it up.”

He climbed the companionway to the sound of retching at his back as Klithren threw up.

Lal Nyanar came and peered disdainfully down over the helm deck rail as Ringil climbed up to meet him.

“That man has been drunk all day,” he sniffed. “What you see in him as an ally, I simply cannot grasp.”

Gil stepped off the companionway. “He’s been in a few places you haven’t.”

“Is that supposed to explain the drinking?”

“It explains why I want him as an ally. Are you ready?”

Nyanar glanced up at the pennants they were flying. “As we’ll ever be. It remains to be seen if this scheme of yours will work, though.”

Ringil, preparing to hand out some straightforward reassurance, felt mischief sparkle through him instead. It was the call of impending risk, he knew, the itch to action—and a long building irritation with Nyanar that finally flared to life. He put on a breezy grin.

“But my lord Nyanar! That’s what gives life its savor, is it not? Where would we be if the future were always known?”

“We’d be back home in Yhelteth,” said Nyanar sourly. “Avoiding madcap quests and desperate jailbreak schemes and deceptions.”

I
am
home, you soggy-faced, entitled little prick,
he barely stopped himself saying.
You think it took northern sorcery to make me the way I am now? You think it took a war?
Those things were tonic compared to what came before.
Desperation and deception were waiting for me at the nursery door, took me by either hand as I walked out into my youth, have been my constant companions since.

He kept his grin with an effort. “Home we might be, but we’d come up a little short on tales of glory to regale our grandchildren with.”

The captain’s mouth crimped. “I see no glory in—”

“Signal!” A bawled cry from the forward lookout. “Signaling—heave to and await escort!”

Nyanar looked queasy, almost a match for Klithren’s face earlier. He met Ringil’s eyes with an expression that verged on accusing. Gil nodded.

“This scheme of mine appears to be working out,” he said amiably.

he shock of the scream held them rigid. It hung in the air around them like freezing fog, even as the echoes ran out across the ruined city. Archeth felt the breath stop in her throat, felt a cold hand cup her at the nape of the neck. The wash of sandalwood and aniseed in the wind. She met Egar’s eyes across the gathering of men, and he nodded, something suddenly old and weary in his face. She’d heard him say the word, just like everyone else, but still, everything in her wanted to shake her head in dumb denial. Their luck just could not be this bad.

The cry repeated, redoubled in force.

“It can smell us,” said the Dragonbane grimly.

He rounded on the men. “Don’t just fucking stand there! I told you, it’s a
dragon.
What do you want, count its fucking teeth? Get back in those ruins. Drop your gear inside and climb. Come on,
move it!
”

They came awake, like statues summoned to life. Hurried into the forlorn façades and crags of stone behind them, casting fearful glances back. She watched them go as if in a dream, had time for an obscure sympathy as she remembered the numb shock of her own first encounter in the war. The fading echoes of that cry, chasing her all the way back … 

“You, too, Archidi.” He was at her shoulder, grabbing, yanking her loose of her terrors, chivvying her to life. “Come on, you’ve been here before. You know the drill. Let’s
go.
”

He shepherded her toward the nearest gap in the architecture, shoved her through, into dim light and a cavern chaos of rubble and collapsed flooring. She heard him follow her in. They stood there a moment in the cradling gloom, amid a scattering of discarded packs and other gear—the men had followed Egar’s orders to the letter. She stared up to where a couple of pale faces peered back down at them. Listened to the noises as the rest of the men scrambled about elsewhere in the ruins, seeking position. Outside, the dragon shrieked once more. She added her pack to the pile, turned to face the Dragonbane, found him at her back, closer than she’d thought.

“So how—”

“In a minute.” He shrugged off his own pack, nodded upward. “Let’s get some height first.”

They clambered up through the slumped and shattered levels, spotted more of the company crouched and huddled where the remaining buttresses and beams of the ruins looked strongest. Men nodded and bowed to her as she inched past, but their eyes skipped repeatedly back to Egar as he climbed behind her. She heard them murmuring, and among those who were speaking Tethanne, she heard the name more than once, like an invocation, like a warding spell of power—

Dragonbane
… 

They came out finally on a section of flooring twenty feet up that had somehow not given way. There was a row of tall, narrow windows to the front. Archeth crept forward, ascertained that the floor was solid, and crouched by the nearest of the openings. Little twinges of pain along the stitches in her wound—she grimaced and tried to ease her posture. Egar came behind her, hampered a little by his grip on the staff lance. He joined her at the window, craned to peer out.

“So how do we do this?” she asked quietly.

“Glad you asked me that.” He didn’t look at her, was still glued to the view outside. “Give me a minute, let’s just see what we’re dealing w—”

Voice blotted abruptly out. He sank to sitting, back to the wall. Drew breath in over his teeth, shot her a glance.

“Go on, take a look.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You don’t want to miss this.”

She crammed past him to the window. The sea of rubble below them, tilting and sloping down toward the sunken Kiriath structures beyond. A frozen landscape of shards and shades of gray and—

Motion!

She almost recoiled from the window; it was a physical effort not to do it. Her heart clutched and jumped in her chest.

It had taken on the same mottled gray tones as the landscape. If it hadn’t been moving, she might have missed it entirely at first glance. But it
was
moving. It clambered effortlessly across the rubble, came pacing zigzag up the slope toward them, and it was grinning. Scimitar-fanged mouth, loose and open to let the tongue flicker out and taste the air. Recessed eyes, high on the long curved head, a crest of folded webbing and spines bristling behind the skull, the colossal echo of the same appendage on a warrior caste lizard, but this crest had to be twice longer than the Dragonbane was tall. Powerful, taloned forelimbs lifting head and chest just off the ground, so it seemed the beast was sniffing for them like a hound. Flexed arch of dorsal plates and back and belly you could have driven a cart and horses under. Haunches, each rising and curving the size of
Pride of Yhelteth
’s mainsail running full before the wind. Finally the tail, tapered and spike-ended, half the length of the body again and thicker than a man’s trunk even at the thinnest point.

It raised its head as she watched, lifted almost fully back on its haunches. The crest flared up and out, spread the width of a palace gateway either side of the skull. She caught a fresh blast of sandalwood. The dragon screamed at the desolate gray sky, and Archeth felt the cry through the stonework she was leaned against. Felt the pit of her belly vibrate.

“Ain’t she a fucking beauty?” breathed the Dragonbane, back at her side. “Look at the
size
of that bitch. Gil’s going to be sorry he wasn’t here for this.”

“So what do we
do
?” she hissed.

“Hard to say. I had a cliff and a pissed-off faggot with a Kiriath broadsword to work with last time.”

“Well.” She gestured helplessly. “Can we lure it back to the pit, maybe? Trick it into falling down there?”

He gave her a tight smile. “It just climbed out of the pit, Archidi. I don’t think that’s going to work.”

The dragon screamed again. The sound rang off the walls around her, rang in her ears. It filled the space inside the ruin like water. Egar nodded.

“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?”

S
HE 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