Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

The imperials reeled apart, away from the thing in their midst.

One was down, dead or dying or just in shock from that first upward chop into his chest—the Ravensfriend liked bone pretty much as well as flesh these days, and Ringil himself couldn’t say how deep the cut had gone. The others were not in much better shape, one rolling and yelling in the firebed trying to put himself out, a second fighting to stay upright with Ringil’s dagger in his leg, only one unharmed, and now Ringil moved to meet him.

But they were imperial soldiers, they were a high-ranking imperial’s honor guard. Drawn from altogether finer cloth than Snarl’s march-masters, and not quite what Ringil had been expecting. The man in the firebed shucked his cloak and rolled clear, would be back on his feet in seconds. The stabbed soldier was reaching awkwardly down, eyes fixed on Ringil like he was hungry. The uninjured soldier stepped forward to cover his comrade, locked up Ringil’s attack. Sour scrape of steel as the blades met. The other man got hold of the dragon-tooth dagger and yanked it out of his own flesh with a single gritted roar. He straightened up, teeth still bared in a savage grin—and dragged himself right back into the fight.

Fuck .

At the corner of his vision, Ringil saw Poppy Snarl look out across the huddled slave caravan for her men.

Saw her eyes widen in shock.

No time for that. He met the two standing imperials in a zigzag blur of steel, deflected both blades and took a slice across his ribs for his trouble; if the injured man’s leg was bothering him, it didn’t show. Ringil kicked out viciously, tried for a knee. He missed, could not afford the instability or time it would take to try again, dropped hastily back, caught a blurred glimpse of the burned man rushing him from the side, and swung about to meet the assault.

Barely in time.

The Ravensfriend blocked like something alive, took the brunt. The sword chimed and quivered, his attacker’s steel glanced off it, turned the force of the rush a vital couple of inches. Ringil pivoted with it, flashed out a hand on instinct, grasped something, a buckle on a tunic, an edge of stiffened cloth, jerked the man forward off balance. The imperial plunged past him, stumbling. Ringil tripped him, put him down. No time to bring the Ravensfriend down for the kill—the others were on him—he settled for a glancing kick to the downed soldier’s head—

Sensed, somehow, the hurtling edge of steel at head height behind him—

Ungainly sideways leap—over the sprawled body, and just ahead of the scything imperial blade. He felt it touch his queue, flip the bound ponytail of hair, felt the cool wind of its passing. He landed awkwardly, breath caught up, only half convinced his head was still on his shoulders.

And whipped about at guard. Tight grin on his face with how close he’d come.

The remaining two imperials came on. The body of their fallen comrade slowed them down. But behind them, the legate had finally managed to draw a sword of his own, was brandishing it not entirely unhandily. And Poppy Snarl was on her knees in the dirt beside Irgesh, scrabbling for his weapon. Ringil felt the balance tilt, felt what he’d planned sliding out of reach, felt—

Straight-line crow-flicker black.

Like a mother hushing unruly boys, but impossibly swift. A rippled fleeting past him through the air, and the two soldiers slammed to a halt, spiked about with sudden, black-fletched arrow shafts. Throat and eye, chest and belly.

Eril’s men, taking no chances.

Yeah—took their fucking time about it, though .

The imperials spasmed, gurgled, and went down, dead or near enough to make no difference. Puff and drift of dust up around their bodies. The man at Ringil’s feet moaned and twitched, but showed no sign of getting up.

Ringil let his breath out. Surveyed his victory.

The legate, clutching his sword at an uncertain guard. Poppy Snarl, crouched beside her slaughtered march-master, blinking at what had just happened. And out among the sea of huddled slaves, Eril’s men moving forward. They wore the assumed garb of the march-masters they’d murdered in the night or the captured slaves they’d imitated coming into camp. They held an irregular assortment of weapons, stolen or already owned, among them at least half a dozen recurved bows drawn to a cautious half-taut readiness. Eril himself led the gathering circle, a bloodied knife in each hand and the matching daubs of close-quarters slaughter still on his face.

Ringil stepped nimbly over the man he’d kicked in the head, booted Snarl sprawling into the dirt as he passed her, and put the tip of the Ravensfriend at the legate’s throat.

“Drop it,” he suggested.

The legate’s sword fell out of his fingers. Ringil lowered the Ravensfriend and waited for Eril’s men to reach him. He met Poppy Snarl’s gaze where she lay watching him from the ground. Surprised at the quick pulse of hate it still generated in him.

Flushed with relief, the imperial legate decided on bluster.

“This—this is an outrage . Do you have any idea who I am ?”

Ringil turned to look at Eril.

“Do we have any idea who he is?”

The Marsh Brotherhood enforcer shrugged. “Some Empire merchant fuck, right?”

“I am the Yhelteth Emperor’s direct, empowered legate to your countrymen!”

Ringil nodded. “He is, unfortunately. See that brooch on his shoulder? Yhelteth diplomatic seal. And I’m willing to bet he’s got—”

He grabbed up the legate’s left hand.

“Yep, the ring, too.” He let the legate’s arm drop in disgust. “This is the last fucking time I trust Brotherhood spies to get my intelligence for me.”

Eril looked embarrassed. In the months they’d been harrying Trelayne’s slavers, he’d pulled Marsh Brotherhood favors for Ringil where he could, but the Brotherhood itself hadn’t been particularly cooperative about it. In the end, sworn-sons-of-the-free-city bullshit aside, they were criminals trying to buy their way into upriver respectability, and Ringil’s terrorism wasn’t any more comfortable for them than it was for the slavers. And Eril, blood debt notwithstanding, was a mid-ranking enforcer, acting alone and out on a limb, with very limited pull.

Surprised it’s lasted even this long, really .

Well—you did save his life .

Ringil sighed and cast a brooding glance around. Daylight already strengthening in the east, washing the first faint color into the tree line and the sandy terrain below. The night gone to bleaching shreds of darkness in the west, and all around the thousand eyes of the slaves and their new saviors, all seemingly resting on him.

An imperial legate. Great.

“Perhaps now,” the legate stormed. “You realize the gravity of your error.”

“There’s no error here,” Ringil told him.

They hauled Poppy Snarl to her feet and held her pinioned for Ringil’s inspection. There was some jeering and groping along the way—Snarl had aged well on the proceeds of Liberalization and the new trade. She still had a bright sheen to hair and eyes, a harsh-boned beauty in the face and curves in all the right places. Hands pawed and squeezed at the more obvious options. She flailed and spat, her clothing tore. Someone—it was hard to keep track of the men Eril hired, Banthir, was it? Or Hengis?—retrieved Ringil’s dragon-tooth dagger from the dirt and brought it to him, wiped carefully clean. The man bowed for respect and handed the weapon over. Ringil nodded absent thanks, tucked it away.

Snarl head-butted one of her captors, sent him stumbling. Raucous laughter from the others.

“Got a temper on her, this one.”

“Soon sort that out. Just needs a good splitting is all.”