Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

“Do you need cash? I can—”

“Got cash, that’s not the problem. Problem is, who can I and can I not trust in this fucking city?”

She shrugged. “Welcome to my world. At court, you wouldn’t—”

Shouting from the corridor. The sounds of struggle.

Their eyes met for a jagged second.

“You squealing castrate piece of shit!” Hoarse bellowing, just outside the chamber. Something thumped heavily into the wall. “Cover up for her, will you, you fucking half man ?”

Panic flooded Imrana’s face.

“It’s him, oh shit, it’s him! He’s back! Get out of here Eg, go, go! The window, get—”

The doors to the chamber burst inward.

Brinag came first, stumbling backward, arms wheeling for balance he could not find. He went over on his back. Scrabbled into a crouch on the carpet, face turned toward them. Egar made out the reddening weal across one cheek where he’d been struck.

“My lady, I’m so sorry. He came unannounced—”

Voice scaling to a sudden cry as Knight Commander Saril Ashant loomed up behind him and swung a well-worn campaign boot into his arse. Brinag lurched forward with the force of the kick, landed flat to the floor. Ashant stepped over his sprawled body and kicked him again, casually, in the head.

“I’ll announce myself, gelding.” Well-bred voice loud and lecturing—Egar caught the tone. The Yhelteth knight was drunk or something like it, and his blood was up. “In my own house, to my own lady wife, I have no fucking need to be announced !”

His eyes drank in the tableau by the bed—his wife, knelt before this Majak seated on his sheets. A savage grin peeled his lips back from his teeth.

“Or maybe I do. It seems, my lord Hanan, that I owe you a hundred elementals and a heartfelt apology. You were right, my wife is a whore after all.” Lethal good cheer lurking at the edges of Ashant’s tone now. “Oh, no , my dear, don’t get up. Don’t stop what you’re doing. You’ve just saved me the necessity of a duel to defend your honor. Isn’t that right, Hanan?”

A second figure stepped into the chamber at Ashant’s right shoulder. Same regimental colors, same campaign cloak and deceptively elegant court sword. Same telltale profession-of-violence shadow hanging over the man like a pall of charnel house smoke. Egar found himself wishing fervently he hadn’t left the Ishlinak staff lance on the temple floor at Afa’marag.

“Much though it grieve me,” Hanan said somberly. “You are correct, my lord.”

Imrana surged to her feet. Oddly, in this room suddenly crowded with men of war, she seemed the only one with any grip on what to do next.

“Saril, what is the meaning of this intrusion?” Icy and commanding in the wrap of her robe—a witch queen out of legend could not have carried it better. “How dare you storm in here, in company, without a word of civilized warning. What is this, the steppes ?”

Ashant goggled at her. It lasted a good, useful moment—then the spell broke.

“Whore!” he yelled, pointing a trembling finger. “Filthy whore!”

“Oh, don’t be such a fucking prick,” Egar told him wearily, and came up off the bed with his hands full of knives.

He figured anything less would get him killed. Two Demlarashan veterans, noble-born and -bred, full of piss and righteous outrage, and the law on their side. Yhelteth jurists accorded any man, even a commoner, the right to butcher his wife on the spot if he caught her in the act of adultery. There were some legal limits on what could be done to the lover, but most magistrates were inclined to be lenient if the husband got carried away. And if that lover was Majak , and the injured party a nobleman just back from serving his Empire in uniform, well, it didn’t take a law clerk to work out how this was going to boil down…

Ashant reached for his sword and Egar went in hard, full-body blow, pinned and blocked the draw before it got started. He knocked the knight to the floor—risky move, if Ashant had been sober and better poised, he probably wouldn’t have gotten away with it. He heard the hushed rasp of steel on his flank as Hanan cleared his blade—was already whirling to face the other man. The stiffness in his wound slowed him down, and his leg buckled on the turn. Hanan misread him, sliced too high. Egar snatched the chance, let the stumble take him all the way forward and down, stabbed savagely with his right-hand knife, down through the toe of Hanan’s boot and into the floorboards beneath.

Hanan roared, ignored the pain, tried to chop him again with the sword. Egar was already rolling away, leave that knife where it is, Dragonbane . He banged into Ashant, who was trying to get up. They clawed at each other, held each other down, wrestled back and forth across the floor until Egar pulled a Majak wrestling trick, got loose and hacked, elbow to throat, once, twice , short vicious arcs, Urann’s balls wouldn’t this guy ever quit, three times then, and there, finally, Ashant fell back and lay faceup on the carpet, choking.

Get up, Dragonbane, get up—

Because Hanan, tough little motherfucker that he’d turned out to be, had meantime reached down and torn the knife up out of his foot with a bellow equal parts triumph and agony, and was now limping forward, sword and dagger style…

Egar rolled to his feet, found himself inches off Hanan’s long blade. He leapt back, just as the Yhelteth knight thrust. The blade fetched up inches short once more. He gave ground again. Hanan grinned ferociously at him, whipped the supple court sword back and forth across the air so it made a sound like shredding cloth. Came on one grim, limping step at a time.

“How now, steppe scum!” he rasped. “How now?”

Falling back, Egar had an eyeblink instant to assess—down to one knife, left-handed; he had a third blade stowed in his burglar’s garb, but it was way too late to free it. He was going to get cut up badly on Hanan’s court sword, getting in close enough to kill the man, but—

From the floor, Brinag—blood matted in his hair, streaming down his face from where Ashant had kicked him—grabbed desperately at the knight’s ankle.

Hanan stumbled, cursed, whipped about and plunged his sword point into the eunuch’s arm. Brinag groaned and hung on. Egar—the knife changing hands like sorcery, spun from palm to gripping palm without thought—seizing the moment, leaping in…

Hanan caught the move in the corner of his eye, swung about, court sword rising clumsily back to guard, and thrust. Egar ducked and hooked with his free arm, the blade went over his shoulder, the hooking arm caught it at the midpoint—twist at the elbow, get that tender inner arm out of the way, lead with the bone—smashed down and stepped in. A poorer blade would have snapped, a poorer soldier would have lost his grip. But Hanan hung on and the blade bent and sliced into Egar’s forearm as the knight twisted it desperately about.

Egar yelled and stabbed—in under the sternum, full force.

Hanan shrilled like a stuck pig. You knew from that cry he was done, but Egar only lurched closer in, hugging the man like a lover. Drove the blade deeper, twisting and hacking down into the belly. Stared into the man’s eyes as he carved the life out of him.

“How now, city dweller?” he spat. “How now ?”

The court sword twanged free of Hanan’s grip as he went down. Blood and viscera gushed out over Egar’s hand as he pulled the knife free.

He held Hanan’s sagging body up for a moment with his other arm. Patted the dead or dying man companionably on the shoulder a couple of times, panting, then let him fall.