The Dark Defiles (33 page)

He’s as ready as he’ll ever be.

And the Ravensfriend, leaning there against the cliff wall, like some louche friend in a harbor end alley, awaiting decision from him on where next to take their carousing.

He takes the sword up, settles the harness back on his shoulders. Shoots Hjel an expectant glance.

All right, then,
he says.
How about you show me a crack where I don’t have to fall out of a tree. And then we can get started.

hey crossed the ridgeline around noon, as the Dragonbane had predicted they would, and stood there looking down. A chorus of groans rose from the company at what lay beyond.

Far from the upland plateau they’d been hoping to reach, the path spilled them down the other side of the mountain’s shoulder almost as far as they’d climbed up the previous day, and into a landscape even more bleak. They spent the back end of the day plodding across what felt like a vast bowl filled with chopped and fire-blackened onion. Peaks rose on all sides and the terrain between was jagged and frayed, all oddly curving spires and fractured bluffs. In places, the rock was glassy to the touch and glinted dully where wandering shafts of sunlight passed over it. Elsewhere, it showed growth of some iridescent crimson moss that smelled faintly of burning. It was the first sign of life they’d found in the landscape and seeing it should have felt better than it did—instead, the men mostly passed by with warding gestures and hurried steps.

As if unnerved by the chaotic ground it had to cross, the path itself grew hesitant and ill-defined. It forked and unwound seemingly at random, and the fire sprite started taking them off it entirely, to dodge around rockfalls and strange frozen eruptions in the stone underfoot. By late afternoon the paving had all but vanished, reduced to single slabs at violently tilted angles every couple of dozen yards. If it really was an Aldrain road, Archeth reflected grimly, then the Aldrain, in these parts at least, looked to have had their arses handed to them on a plate.

For the first time, she found herself brooding on the geographical absurdity of what they were doing, wondering if Tharalanangharst’s smoothly persuasive argument had been worthy of the trust she placed in it after all.

There is no easy path south through the Wastes,
it told them bluntly.
The entire region is hazardous, often lethally so.

Yeah, no shit. And marching east from here instead is going to be what, safer?

No, Dragonbane. Such a march would in all probability not be any more secure, and would in any case leave you on the wrong side of a mountain chain it’s doubtful you are equipped to cross. Fortunately, that is not the itinerary I have in mind.

Seemed there was this ruined city, two or three days’ march inland … 

“I don’t know, Archidi.” Egar brooded as they sat at camp that night. “I’m not saying your iron demon’s sending us off to die exactly, but the steppes are fucking huge. My father rode up north and west of the Janarat once, back before Ishlin-ichan was much more than a bunch of hovels on its banks. He was going to circle round and raid the Ishlinak from the far side, take the whole clan unawares. Stuff he talked about finding out there—steppe ghouls all over the place, things like giant spiders that jumped like grasshoppers, could knock a man right off his horse if they hit right. And some kind of, I don’t know, deformed giant wolves or something. I mean, stuff straight out of a campfire tale. Plus no decent grazing for the horses and nothing much to hunt that you’d want to eat. They had to turn back in the end; the terrain was just too tough. And he never even saw these mountains the demon talks about, so that’s even further out. Now we’ve got to cross all of that somehow, just to make Ishlin-ichan.”

She gestured. “Yeah, well. These uhm,
aerial conveyances
are going to take us. Right?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Telling you.”

The conviction was oddly easy to come by. She realized abruptly that for all that Tharalanangharst harped on constantly about its
these days severely limited senses
, she’d never once entertained any doubts about the accuracy of the Warhelm’s intelligence. Somewhere in the iron bowels of An-Kirilnar, a trust and certainty seemed to have hardened in her - or maybe just an acceptance, that this was her path and she’d better get on and walk it.

Could have used some krin for the road, though. That too much to ask?

Apparently, it was. The Warhelm assured her it was unfamiliar with the substance, that krinzanz had not been known five thousand years ago, or at least had not been in known and common use. And when she started sketching out its properties, Tharalanangharst grew evasive on the subject of substitutes or whether some could be synthesized. There was much else to be done, it maintained. Many other, more vital preparations to be made. Perhaps later.

She’d found, oddly, that she didn’t much mind. She’d quit the drug before; you could ignore the craving if you had enough else to do. And by then she’d been caught up in the preparations herself, fascinated by her returned knives and the way the Warhelm talked to her about them. Practicing with them, hefting and juggling and throwing, walking through the centuries-ingrained Hanal Keth katas until she was exhausted, trying to adopt and adapt to what Tharalanangharst taught her—it was an entrancing, all-consuming process that mostly took away any residual nagging need for the krin.

And now, sitting here in the blue gloom, she struggled to locate the place inside herself where that need had sat. The locked conviction filled her instead—they were underway, they were on their way home. Let that be enough for now.

“You’re taking a lot on trust, you know.” As if the Dragonbane could read her thoughts.

“Warhelm hasn’t been wrong yet, has it?”

Egar stood up and stretched. She heard cartilage crack somewhere in his massive frame. He faced out from the overlaid glowing blue circles of light that defined their camp against the surrounding craggy darkness. Crouched back to her level again, and nodded east.

“That’s another ridge out there,” he said quietly. “It’s still a fair way off, but it looks to me at least as high as this one. And you can see there are peaks beyond it. I’d kind of hoped we were over the high line by now.”

She said nothing. She had, too.

The Dragonbane sat back down on his bedroll. Offered her a tight little smile. “Don’t want to be the one grumbling in the ranks, Archidi. Urann knows, we’re going to have enough of that a couple of days from now without me joining in. So this is just between you and me. But over this kind of ground, it’s another day to get up there, minimum. More likely, it’s two. And who knows what’s on the other side? We’re starting to get beyond the bounds of two to three days here.”

“Tomorrow’s day three,” she pointed out.

“Yeah. All day. Talk to me when we’re over that ridge and it’s still not dark and there’s a big fuck-off ruined city waiting for us on the other side.”

She remembered his twitchiness from the previous night, made this for more of the same—the pinch of knowing at every step that he was on his way back to something he’d abandoned two years ago the way you leave a sinking ship.

Change the subject, Archidi.

She made a gesture, low in her lap, toward the glowing bowl where Yilmar Kaptal sat alone.

“You talk to him yet?” she asked softly.

The Dragonbane followed her gaze. “Couple of times, yeah. Why?”

“When?”

“Once when we stopped to eat. And then back when our fiery friend was off checking out that cave entrance.”

“And?”

“And
what
? Surly as fuck at the cave; before that he talked at me like I’d rob him at knifepoint if he stopped. You still worrying about what he might really be? Archidi, let it go. He was put back together by a demon that feeds you five-thousand-year-old fruit, sends iron spiders to do its will, and lends you glowing fucking turtles in place of firewood. Who
knows
whether that’s really Yilmar Kaptal in there or not? And you know what—as long as he’s on our side, who
gives
a shit? Not like he was a prancing little pony of joy to have around
before
he drowned, is it?”

“Fair point.”

“Yeah.” The rant seemed to have eased Egar’s temper a little. “Well.”

“I just wish I knew why Tharalanangharst thought it was so important to have him back. What it’s got to do with this grand purpose Anasharal had.”

An elaborate shrug. “Like someone I know said recently—Warhelm hasn’t been wrong yet. Right?”

She grimaced. “Yeah, all right. But seriously, Eg. Kaptal’s a fucking
courtier.
He’s got nothing we need.”

“Right now he doesn’t. Maybe we’ll find out he’s got some useful contacts in Ishlin-ichan.”

“If he does, he’s keeping very quiet about it. He’s been briefed along with everybody else, he knows where we’re headed. Anyway, I can’t see that. Don’t let current circumstance fool you—the only reason Kaptal made the trip north with us is because he couldn’t let Shendanak and Tand upstage him. And even then, he’s bitched every inch of the way. From what I hear around court, he’d barely ever been outside the Yhelteth city walls before this. He wouldn’t know Ishlin-ichan from a hole in the ground.”

Egar grunted. “It is a fucking hole in the ground.”

“He’s useless, Eg.” She plowed on, refused to sidetrack back into conversation about a steppe they hadn’t even reached yet. “He’s twitchy as fuck, and he’s an entitled little shit into the bargain. You saw how he reacted to the idea of carrying any of his own gear And if we do get in a fight somewhere along the line, I doubt he’s picked up a sword his whole fucking life.”

The Dragonbane yawned cavernously. “Used to be a pimp, didn’t he?”

“So they say.”

“Probably very handy with a knife, then. Maybe you should give him one.”

“Very funny.”

But behind the sourness she feigned, she was secretly relieved to see Egar relaxing. Because if the Warhelm’s much-vaunted
aerial conveyances
were really going to get them to Ishlin-ichan as promised, the journey after that was wholly on Majak turf. And whether they then took passage on one of the infrequent trade barges down the Janarat, or simply procured horses and rode directly south to the Dhashara pass, successful progress was going to hinge rather a lot on exactly how well the Dragonbane coped with his homecoming.

T
HE SKY CLEARED UP OVERNIGHT, AND THEY WOKE EARLY TO A ROSE-EDGED
vision of the band, arcing overhead against an almost cloudless dawn. The lifeless landscape around them seemed softer with the change, somehow less jagged and threatening, as if the new light had warmed something stony away. Archeth felt how it loosened the men up as they bustled about, breaking camp. She didn’t blame them. Not for the first time, she realized how much she missed the habitually clear night skies of the south. How much she missed—

Ishgrim.

Memory uncoiled and struck, like keen knives in her belly and eyes. Lying together in cooling sweat on a balcony divan, Archeth pointing out the Kiriath constellations by name, and both of them laughing as Ishgrim tried stumblingly to copy the pronunciation.

They’d both wept when it was time for Archeth to board ship at the Shanta yards.

You’ll see,
Archeth lied.
Back before you know it. Nothing to worry about.

Ishgrim said nothing. Despite some of the games they played in bed, she was no innocent. Slavery had stamped a hard, unwavering vision of the world into her, and they both knew the risks the expedition was going to face.

I will pray to the Dark Court for you,
she blurted as Archeth turned to go.

Uhm. If you like.

I know that you do not believe.
Defiantly, chin lifted in a way that gouged into Archeth’s heart.
But Takavach the Salt Lord answered my prayers in captivity. He brought me to safe haven with you. Perhaps he has a purpose for us both.

Her last view of the girl was her slim, erect figure in sunlight, immobile amid the cheering crowd along the viewing platforms as the flotilla rode the current downriver toward the estuary and the sea. Ishgrim had not waved at any point, and Archeth, squinting before distance took the possibility away, saw that the girl’s hands were knotted tight on the platform’s rail.

She took the ache of memory in both hands. Twisted it into a strength.

Hold on, girl—I’m coming for you. Fucking nothing going to live that gets in my way this time.

“Looks better,” she said brightly to Egar as their paths crossed later in the bustle.

He grunted, still buttoning himself up at the fly. “Yeah, the sun came out. Let’s hope it’s a fucking omen.”

If it wasn’t, it was the next best thing. They crossed the suddenly sun-gilded terrain at a brisk pace now, along a path of paving increasingly intact. The fire sprite scudded ahead of them, pale and hard to see at times but rarely hesitating for more than a few seconds before darting onward. There were no obvious branches or breaks in the paved way and they were into the cool shade of the next ridge and climbing not long after midday. The hairpin terraces were a match for the path, in far better repair than those they’d walked in the previous two days, broader and more forgiving in incline, too. With the fresh energy the change of weather had given them, they made the ridgeline with a solid few hours of daylight left.