Ричард Морган - The Dark Defiles

“No, but you did it repeatedly. Which makes it far more like…”

Volume soaking out of Barla’s voice like piss into sand. Then silence. Egar glanced over at him curiously.

Saw where the doctor was staring and followed his gaze, down League street to the next bend, over the low roofs of houses to the harbor waters beyond.

And the big, lean League man-of-war anchored there.

HE SPRINTED THE REST OF THE SLOPE DOWNWARD, LEAVING BARLA PUFFing in his wake. Skidded on greasy cobbles, stayed upright with the long habit of battlefield charges in his past. Around the final curve on League street, where it splayed wide to meet the wharf, down the broad cobbled mound it made, and so out onto the waterfront proper. He let his pace bleed down to a slow jog and came to a halt at the edge of the wharf, staring out at the new arrival.

Trying to calculate exactly how much bad news this might be.

The League ship was a little smaller than Pride of Yhelteth, but with that sole exception, she dominated the harbor. Her bulk dwarfed the few local fishing boats tied up along the southern quay, her lines rebuked the sturdy merchantman build of Pride and Sea Eagle’s Daughter, and she somehow gave the impression of having shunted the moored imperial vessels aside to make room for herself in the center of the little bay. Shielded archer’s platforms armored her railings fore and aft. The cumbersome snout of a war-fire tube poked over her bows like some huge sleeping serpent’s head.

She was anchored squarely across the harbor exit.

Her colors flapped wetly at stern and mainmast—he’d recognized them from that first glimpse up on the hill, had seen plenty like them on the ships in Lanatray harbor a few weeks back, while the expedition restocked provisions and waited on the diplomatic niceties. The eleven-star-and-band combination of the League topped the mainmast, above a bigger flag denoting city of origin—in this case some piece of nonsense involving a gate, a river, sacks of silver, and a couple of large buzzards; Trelayne itself, he recalled. The League flag was repeated at the stern, and dark reddish pennants flew off both secondary masts. He’d seen those before, too; couldn’t remember where. Couldn’t remember what they meant.

Footfalls behind him—he glanced round, saw Barla crossing the deserted wharf at a limping trot, lugging his bag from one hand to the other as he came.

“Sacred Mother of Revelation,” he panted. “What’s that doing here?”

Egar shook his head. “I’d love to believe it’s a standard patrol. But from what we heard in Lanatray, I don’t think they bother with that sort of thing up here. Fits with what Gil told me, too—no one in the League gives a shit about these islands.”

“Apparently they do now.”

“Yeah.”

Movement on Pride of Yhelteth ’s main deck. Egar squinted in the failing light, made it for Mahmal Shanta, up out of his cabin for the first time in days, huddled in a heavy blanket and trailed by solicitous slaves. He stood at the starboard rail with a spyglass at his eye, scoping the League vessel. Egar saw him turn to one of his retinue and issue commands. The man bowed and went below again.

“All right, come on.” Egar jogged along the wharf to Pride ’s gangplank, waited for Barla to catch him up, and then went aboard. The watchmen waved them through, clearly distracted. Which, Egar reflected grimly, wasn’t good to see in men supposedly trained to marine standard.

We’re all getting way too slack. This place is sapping us. We’re in no shape to …

To what?

He joined Mahmal Shanta at the starboard rail.

“Dragonbane.” The old naval engineer did not take the spyglass from his eye. His voice was hoarse with long bouts of coughing. “You’ve seen our new friends, I take it?”

Egar grunted. “Hard to miss.”

“Indeed. Hard to take as coincidence, too. One doubts such savage beauty graces Ornley harbor on a regular basis.”

“Beauty?”

“Beauty.” Reedy emphasis on the word. Shanta lowered the spyglass and looked at the Dragonbane. He’d grown gaunt with his illness, but his eyes still gleamed. “I don’t expect anyone from a horse tribe to appreciate it, but that’s a poem in timber floating out there, a veritable ode to maritime speed and maneuverability. There’s a reason the Empire always comes off worse in naval engagements with the League, and you’re looking at it. Superior design, borne of constant competition between city-states warring for an edge.”

“Right.” Egar gestured. “You know what those red pennants mean?”

“Indeed I do—”

Shanta stopped abruptly, caught and then creased over with a spasm of coughing. One of his retinue came forward to hold him up, but the engineer waved him violently away. He braced himself on the rail with one age-knobbed hand, got himself upright again by wheezing stages. Slaves fussed about, rearranging the blanket on Shanta’s trembling shoulders. The man Egar had seen Shanta order below returned with a steaming mug of something that reeked of mint and other less palatable herbs. The engineer tucked the spyglass under his arm and cupped the mug with both hands. He drank gingerly. Grimaced but forced the liquid down.

“My lord, this is madness.” Salbak Barla knew his patient well and was not crowding him, but his tone was urgent. “You should not be out in this weather. We must get you below, we must get you warm.”

“Yes, yes, all in good time. Here.” Shanta handed the mug to the doctor and took hold of his spyglass again. “It is unfortunate, but I am the expert here, and I am not done perusing. I must fix detail in my head, Doctor, and thus save myself the necessity of further sojourns on deck.”

“The pennants,” Egar persisted.

“Yes, the pennants.” Shanta pointed with the spyglass, schoolmasterish. “Heart’s blood red, snake’s tongue trim, at foremast and aft. Northern League naval convention. It signifies that the vessel is flagship to a flotilla.”

“A fucking flotilla ?”

Shanta stifled another, weaker cough with his fist. “Three to five vessels, if my memory serves me correctly. More and the pennants would not be split tongued. Or they would have gold trim. Or is it both?”

The rain seemed abruptly to be falling that little bit harder. The gloom beyond the harbor exit grew that much more menacing. Egar scowled.

“So where are the rest of them?”

“There’d hardly be room for more vessels in the harbor anyway,” Barla offered. “Perhaps they anchored farther out.”

Egar tried to stave off a creeping sense of doom.

“How long have they been there?” he asked Shanta.

“Oh, not long. The watchmen called me as soon as they sighted the colors. It’s taken me some time to get up and dressed, and then I waited below to see if they’d come to us. When they didn’t, I came up on deck and I’ve been here awhile. Say half an hour since they anchored? A little longer?”

“And no landing party.” Egar squinted against the rain. “They’ve not even started lowering a boat.”

“No.”

“But… what would they be waiting for?” wondered Barla.

Shanta and the Dragonbane traded glances. Shanta nodded. Egar felt a sickly weight settling in his guts.

“Should I tell him?” wheezed the naval engineer. “Or will you?”

The doctor blinked in the rain. “What?”

“Encirclement,” said Egar grimly. “They’re not here to send anyone ashore, they’re here to plug up the harbor. Stop us getting out. While the rest of the flotilla lands an assault force somewhere up the coast, and they come overland to fence us in.”

“Then—but, then…” Salbak Barla gaped back and forth at the two of them. “Well, we have to warn captain Rakan. And the marines. We have to… to…”