Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

“Share hearth and heart’s truth, break bread and sup under a shared sky.” The ritual disarming welcome phrases didn’t really work once you got down off the steppe and into a city, but Harath mumbled through them nonetheless. “The warmth of my fire is yours.”

“As grateful kin, I take my place.”

“Yeah, well…” Harath showed the skinning knife he’d been holding at his back. Made an apologetic gesture with it. He stuffed the blade into the sheath on his belt and stood there yawning—slept-in shirt and breeches, hair a tangled mess even by Majak standards. Night-before breath that Egar could smell on the yawn from a yard away. “Can’t be too careful, you know. Can’t even trust the brothers in this fucking place. And I don’t mean Majak across the board, guys like you—cuz that’s always been a bit iffy, right? I’m talking my own fucking Ishlinak blood-bond kin here.”

Egar pulled a face he hoped was sympathetic. Mostly, he was trying not to breathe too much of Harath’s secondhand air.

“Hard to believe, something like that. Yeah.”

“Believe it, old-timer.” Harath wandered back to the cot and sat down hard enough to make the timbers crack. “This fucking city. Gets its teeth into you, you know. Sometimes wish I’d never set eyes on the place. Fucking Alnarh, I knew him back in Ishlin-ichan. Knew his kin out on the steppe. Sure, he was a bit of a mouthy prick, even then, but you could always trust him in a scrap. Trust him to get a brother’s back.”

“I hear he’s a convert now,” Egar hazarded. “What’s that about?”

“Yeah, it’s fucked up.” Harath scratched at his belly through the shirt. “I mean, we all did it, the cash was too good to turn down. No conversion, no commission, so we figure what the fuck, it’s only like marrying some Voronak tart or something; you got to make libations to all their pointy-faced little ice gods, else you’re never going to hear the end of it from her family, right? Same thing here. There’s this number you do, offering up your blade to that book they’ve got. Bunch of reciting, some incense, and you’re in.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Fuck knows. We had this squabble a few months back over a slave girl. Waggle-arsed little package from up in the League, you know what they’re like, right?”

Egar nodded absently—lurid images of Ishgrim dancing behind his eyes.

The Ishlinak mustered a weary grin. “Had udders on her like you wouldn’t believe, brother. And when I jumped her, well, Alnarh took that hard. He’s a jealous fuck at the best of times. But, nah…” Harath sank fists in his own hair, dragged the heels of his hands down his face. Shook his head. “He was acting weird way before that. It’s like he was buying into the Revelation for real. When he talked about it, he got this look in his eye. Starts telling us to stop using Dweller names around him when we curse. Some shit about offending the angels. I mean, come on. I expected the others to call him on it, couple of them are way closer kin than I can lay claim to, I think Larg’s a full cousin or something. But they just let it go. And then when Menkarak comes calling, it’s a whole—”

“Menkarak?” A moment too late, the words already out of his mouth, Egar realized the way he’d jumped. “Pashla Menkarak, you talking about?”

“That’s right.” Harath looked up. “Listen, Skaranak, don’t take this the wrong way, but what the fuck’s your interest here?”

“Ahh, the usual.” Trying belatedly for mercenary nonchalance. “Took blade pay from a court noble and now she’s into it with the Citadel. Fine as far as that goes, but then I hear they’ve been hiring brothers, and that’s new. Never figured I might end up fighting my own kind when I took the purse.”

Harath shrugged morosely. “Coin is coin.”

“Yeah—speaking of which, the old guy downstairs told me to tell you he needs you tonight. If that makes sense.”

A grimace. “Sense enough.”

“He got you strong-arming for him?”

“Debt collection.” Harath yawned and gestured. “This fucking city. Got to cover the rent somehow, you know how it is.”

“Been there once or twice when I was your age, yeah.”

“Not going to pretend I like it much.” The young Ishlinak picked up the chamber pot and peered into it, grimaced again and put it down. “Thumping some poor kid about to get money back he borrowed to buy a ring or impress his friends. Or—like last week—some war widow trying to feed her kids when they just doubled the rice tax. Lot of the time, I’ll just stand there behind the old fuck with my arms folded. With the widows, that’s usually enough. They don’t have the money, they’ll take him behind the curtain, or get the daughter to do it. He’s good like that, most times he’ll let it slide, you know. But fuck, man, if I’d known back in Ishlin-ichan I was going to be making my bread like this…”

“Coin is coin,” Egar reminded him.

“Yeah, well it’s a pretty small fistful. By the time he writes off the rent, lucky if I’m eating two squares a day.” Harath’s face changed, seemed abruptly younger. “You really a Dragonbane like you said?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Takes some balls, huh?”

“And some luck.” Egar chopped down the subject. “You didn’t think about going up the hill, then? Sign up for Demlarashan, get some coin that way?”

Harath stared at him. “I did two tours down there last year. That was enough for me. Fucking shit-hole. You ever been?”

“In the war, yeah.” Egar shrugged. “Different then.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that. But I’ll tell you something for nothing, Dragonbane—they’re all fucking nuts down there now. I reckon it’s the heat.”

Egar remembered the heat, like some solid bronze idol of a fat man he had to carry around everywhere, seated weightily on his shoulders, fat burnished thighs wrapping around his neck, pressing down on his chest. The steppes in summer could be sweltering—but it was nothing compared with Demlarashan heat. And Harath was right, the locals were mostly barking mad. He didn’t blame the Ishlinak. He wouldn’t go back himself if he could possibly avoid it.

Not even to look at the bones of that fucking dragon.

“Tell you,” the young Ishlinak muttered. “Demlarashan, it’s a waste of fucking time. The Empire’s never going to rein them in, doesn’t matter how many men they spend. Those guys got nothing better to do down there than string each other up over spelling mistakes in the fucking Revelation. Might as well give it up now and go home. I mean, it’s not like there’s anything down there worth having anyway. It really is a shit-hole. Nothing grows, you’re lucky if you can keep goats. So let them keep their goats and their fucking rock temples and gibberish texts and acres of fucking sand. Who gives a shit?”

Egar looked around for somewhere to sit down, but there was only the cot. The room was growing oppressive.

“Well, next time I’m up at court, I’ll be sure and pass on your strategic advice.”

Harath shot him a hungry look. “You really gigging for a noble, huh?”

“Yep. Like I said.”

“Good purse, yeah?”

Egar nodded. “Very good. You want to get some lunch?”

THEY FOUND A TAVERN IN A STEEP BACKSTREET WITH VIEWS OUT ACROSS the Span and the estuary. Harath apparently knew it from his high-rolling days before Menkarak fired him. They took a table out on the balcony. Ordered some hair-of-dog to blunt the edge of the Ishlinak’s hangover.

“Wasn’t him personally, mind you.” Harath, surfacing from the suds of his ale. “They got Alnarh to tell me. Which he did with a big fucking grin on his face, the cunt. Said if I couldn’t comport myself like a man of faith , I had no business standing guard over Citadel property. Like he wouldn’t have jumped that bitch if she’d given him half a look.”