Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

“No,” it said, in a surprisingly gentle voice. “And I haven’t seen him up here, either. Were you expecting the Dark Court?”

“I…” Gerin shivered. A sneeze came and racked him, loud and sudden as surf bursting on the rocks at Melchiar Point. “I prayed for the Salt Lord’s intercession.”

The figure wiped fastidiously at its doublet with one hand. “Are you from the marshes, then?”

“Y-yes. I was—”

Behind him, the scrabbling of claws over rock and the full-throated whoop of the dogs as they saw their quarry. Gerin thrashed soggily around, saw the first of the pack hammering toward him, all teeth and grayish bunch-muscled sprint, felt a scream clog up in his throat—

At his shoulder, he heard the swordsman say something in a language he didn’t know. Saw, out of the corner of his eye, an arm lifted, a brief sign sketched on the air.

The hound yelped.

Skidded to a snarling halt a dozen yards off. It snapped and snarled again, but would not come closer. The swordsman with the scarred face took a step forward, made another sign, and spoke again. A finger wagged, gestured at the edge of the nearest bluff. The dog got up and limped hurriedly to the edge, looked down, looked back once at the cloaked figure, and then threw itself off into space. A long howl floated up, a crash of tree boughs breaking, and then silence.

The rest of the pack howled in unison with their fallen leader, but would not come ahead. They slunk back and forth on their bellies at the fringe of the trees until the swordsman took two more impatient steps toward them, spoke and signed again, and then they crawled whimpering away into the sanctuary of the forest, and fled.

“Now,” the newcomer said in his gentle voice. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me your name, lad?”

“Gerin,” Gerin managed, still shivering. “They call me Trickfinger, it’s because when I was still a boy I could—”

The figure twisted about, gestured impatiently. “Yes, I’m sure it’s a fascinating tale. You can tell me all about it later. You’re from the slave caravan?”

“Yes. We escaped. But they’re right behind m—”

“Don’t concern yourself with that. Your luck has just changed, Gerin Trickfinger. I am—”

The pain came and hit him a colossal blow in the side. Gerin blinked. For a moment, he thought the swordsman had stabbed him. He stumbled and sat down clumsily on the blufftop, legs out like a child’s. He looked down dully, and saw the quarrel sticking out under his ribs, the blood leaking out around it. He looked up at his new companion, met his eyes in wondering fear and something that felt ridiculously like embarrassment. He felt treacle-slow and stupid. He made a hesitant smile.

“Shit, they—”

And now, in the eyes that had been as dead as stones, he saw something flare up. The figure made a tight, harsh, sobbing sound and swung around, one pale hand already up and tugging at the broadsword pommel. The blade came up and around and out—some trick scabbard, Gerin thought muzzily, must be open all along one side—and it glimmered in the bandlight.

Two of the march-masters had made it to the top. The crossbowman was already cranking for his next shot; the other held his sword two-handed, covering his comrade, breathing heavily but ready to scrap.

“Escaped slave,” he panted. “No need for you to involve yourself, good sir.”

“But I am involved,” said Gerin’s new companion in an awful, shaking voice. “I’m a son of the free cities, and so is this boy. And this doesn’t look very much like freedom to me.”

The man with the crossbow finished his crank, crammed a new bolt into the channel, and got his weapon lifted with obvious relief.

“I won’t babble politics with you, sir,” the other march-master said, more steadily now. “I don’t make the laws, I’m just doing my job. Now if you don’t want the same breakfast as this slave just got, you’ll let us collect the scalp and be on our way. Just be a good citizen and stand back.”

“But you have no weapons to make me.”

It was like a thunderbolt cracking across the space between them. Gerin, watching it all unravel, saw the crossbowman drop his charged bow as if it were hot, gawp down at his empty, open hands in disbelief. The other march-master held up his sword in a loose-fingered grip and the weight of the weapon tugged it away, let it tumble to the stony ground.

The cloaked figure reached them in less time than it took Gerin to draw his next agonized breath. It was as if the space around the newcomer had folded up like a picture on a page, had let him step across the crumpled edges between. The blued-steel blade cut about, chopped the crossbowman’s belly open from the side, licked back up to take the other man through the throat. Blood splashed black in the bandlight, and the two men went down in choking, screaming ruin.

Movement in the shadows beneath the trees. The third march-master came flogging to the top of the slope, short-sword in hand. His voice was hoarse with effort, and furious.

“Guys, what the fuck did you do to my hounds? They’ve gone completely—”

He jarred to a halt, words as well as steps, as he saw the bodies of his comrades and what stood over them. His voice went up a full octave, came out shrill.

“Who the fuck are—”

“You’re just in time,” the figure rasped, and the blue blade flashed. The third march-master had time to blink at the glimmer of metallic light in his face, then he saw his view tip and tumble and spin, pine trees and cloud and patches of bandlit sky rushing by—he had that single moment to think he’d been pushed over the edge of the bluff—and then a painful thud, vision unaccountably dimming out now, taste of dirt in his gaping mouth, and his eyes came to rest on a final, closing glimpse of something he might or might not have had time to recognize as his own collapsing, blood-gouting headless corpse…

The swordsman watched the body fall, then turned back to Gerin, who still sat splay-legged on the ground, head drooping forward now. The cloaked figure crouched in front of the boy, touched the wound gently around the quarrel, and grimaced. He put down his blade and lifted the boy’s sagging chin. Gerin looked back at him blankly for a moment; then a child-like smile touched the corners of his bloodied mouth.

“Doesn’t hurt anymore,” he mumbled. “Did we get away?”

The figure cleared its throat. “After a fashion, yes. Yes, you did.”

“That’s good then.”

They looked at each other for a little longer. Blood ran out of one smiling corner of Gerin’s mouth. The figure saw it and let go of his chin, put one hand cupped against the boy’s lacerated, muddy cheek instead.

“Is there anything I can do for you, lad?”

“Out on the marsh,” the boy said indistinctly. “Salt in the wind…”

“Yeah?”

“Mother says…”

“Yes… Gerin, right? What does she say, Gerin?”

“…says don’t… get too close to…”

The swordsman put a single knee to the ground. Waited. After a moment, tears ran out of the boy’s eyes and blotched on his lap.

“Fuck them,” he wept. “Fuck them all.”

He did not lift his head again.

Ringil Eskiath kept his hand cupped at Gerin’s cheek until he was quite sure the boy was dead. Then he picked up his sword, and got quietly to his feet. He looked down at the small body for a while, and then away across the top of the rock bluffs, toward the distant, dotted fires of the slave caravan’s camp.

“ That I think I can do for you,” he said meditatively.

He had Kefanin wake him before dawn. He stumbled downstairs for a breakfast his stomach didn’t really want, and stepped out into the courtyard under a sky fading dark blue from black. The sun was still a good hour under the horizon, and a crisp desert chill held the air. He filled his lungs with it, and was surprised to find, as he crossed the yard, a cheerful energy in his stride that hadn’t been there the day before.